Dissonant Corruption
by Barrel Maker
Summary: OC's gotta find some way to figure out neat new skill he's found. Then he gets himself into some pretty serious problems. A really old fic I made years ago.
1. Chapter 1: To The Surface

[Buckle up kids, you're about to dive into the worst part of the fic, sadly. If you can bear with the first two chapters, then you'll be okay for the rest. Sure, I could have gone back and written a better hook, but I decided to upload this exactly as my 15 year old self had written it. Which was back in 2012. Think of it this way. Chapter 1 is the filter that determines which of you will persevere through a really terrible beginning, and which of you judge quality by it's first chapter. Chapter 2 is around to see if you weren't lying to yourself in Chapter 1. Happy reading. Unless you hate it. In which case I'm sorry]

Hidden inside the center of Japan lies a mystical land seldom visited by outsiders. This land, Gensokyo, is home to thousands of supernatural beings. The most common of which are the youkai, who populate the land in every direction.

Buried beneath its surface lies the Former Hell of Blazing Fires, more commonly known as the Underworld. In this forsaken world segregated from the surface, hundreds of other youkai live, rejected by those above for vast reasons, in Hell's Former Capital. Ruling over them is a family of Satori, who live within the walls of the mysterious Palace of the Earth Spirits which sits above the chamber of the Former Hell. In this family are two daughters, one appropriately named Satori Komeiji and the other Koishi Komeiji, her younger sister. Near the time of their birth, a bright light flashes over the Palace, and a young boy appears in front of the gates. His skin is darker than any other youkai commonly seen, and is near the same age as the daughters. Attached to his arm is a note with the name, "Hayato". The boy is taken in by the parents, and is raised along with Satori and Koishi.. Over time, the physical aging of the trio ceased at their adolescence, a trait that was both not common yet not unusual.

157 years later, their parents died, and for the next three years, the three of them vowed to rule the Underworld as their parents did. But in that third year, an event was going to occur that would change the lives of Hayato and everyone around him. In reality, it should have never happened.

...

_*Gensokyo Year 2016*_

* August 3rd. 7:00A.M. Palace of the Earth Spirits*

"Wake up!" A voice faintly called outside of my dream. I slowly yawned, wondering who was talking to me. The voice sounded kind-hearted and innocent, yet at the same time excited. "C'mon Hayato, wake up!" the voice repeated.

"Hmm? Oh, good morning, Koishi!" I said with a smile.

"Morning, sleepyhead!" she said, smiling back, "Hurry up and get ready! You said you'll take me to the surface today!"

"Oh, that's right. You know, Mom and Dad always warned us that the youkai up there hate everyone in the Underworld," I reminded her.

"Yeah, I know…" she mumbled, "but it's really beautiful up there! And the laws only prohibit the surface youkai from entering our region. We can go up whenever we want! And we've already been there before!"

I sighed with a smile, "Okay, okay! Now get out of my room so I can change!"

Koishi giggled and exited the room. I went over to my small wardrobe which held only one combination of clothing other than my sleepwear, the black and white kimono that I wore since I was a child. It grew as I did, and was enchanted to never get dirty. I took off my sleeping clothes and put it on. I opened the door from my large bedroom to the large hall, and proceeded towards the Palace Foyer. Flight was an ability used by many youkai that were at least one step above the rest. Since Satori, Koishi and I were all several levels above the rest, flight was second nature to us.

As I flew to the door, Koishi was eagerly waiting next to it. She had dark green eyes and silvery white, slightly green-tinted hair which went down to her neck. She wore her usual orange-yellow shirt with a dark green color, her black hat with a yellow ribbon, and her green skirt. Around her were the cords of her third eye, a dark blue floating eye that had cords which wrapped around her body, and were connected to her feet. On her face was the expression of pure joy and innocence. Throughout our lives, we always made each other happy. I always found ways to brighten up her day, and in return, she brightened up mine. She was practically my sister, after all.

I flew over next to her. "Okay, ready to go?"

She smiled with excitement. "Mhmm! Let's go!"

We flew out of the two large doors of the Palace, and past the gate, and began making our way to the geyser's source. The geyser was one of the few, if not only way of reaching the surface, and it was on the other side of the Underworld's caverns. We flew by the Ancient city, which was the Former Capital of Hell before it moved. At the edge of the Ancient City, we saw Yuugi Hoshiguma, who was lying on top of a building.

Yuugi was an Oni, which meant that she spent most of her day drinking. When she wasn't drinking, she was either sleeping, or showing off her incredible natural strength. She wore a red short-sleeved shirt with red trim, and a dark blue skirt also with red trim. On her wrists and ankles, she had manacled chains. She had a red horn with a yellow star protruding out of her forehead, which was a common trait for Oni.

"Hey Yuugi," I called from a short distance.

"Hmm? Oh, it's you. Where are you headed off to?"

"We're on our way to visit the surface."

"Is that so? Well, you kids have fun up there. I'm gonna get a drink," she replied as she skidded her way off the roof.

A few minutes later, we made our way to the Underworld Bridge which "connected" the Underworld with the surface. However, it was still underground, and we still needed to get to the geyser.

"Huh? Who's there?" inquired a voice as we approached the bridge.

The voice belonged to Parsee Mizuhashi, who was the guardian or "bridge princess" that watched over the bridge. Over the years of watching both individuals and happy couples pass by with their freedoms to travel, she developed a large store of jealousy. She eventually stored so much that she gained the ability to control envy in people's hearts. Though, she only used it when she needed to… Or if she didn't like someone. She had wavy blonde hair and green eyes somewhat similar to Koishi's, and she wore a dress with a mix of brown, white, purple, and blue.

I called over her, "Hey Parsee. We're going to the surface."

She spoke in an unmotivated tone. "Well it's not like I can stop you even if I had to. Go on ahead."

"Thanks, Parsee," said Koishi.

"Sure thing, 'your highness'," she replied back sarcastically.

Koishi whispered over to me as we flew, "What was that about?"

"I don't know," I replied," but it probably has to do with her jealousy. And besides, you _are_ the princess of the Underworld along with your sister.

"Yeah, you're right," Koishi agreed.

We flew into the Underworld Entrance, which was just before the geyser's source, up on a cliff. As we flew casually over the forest, two figures descended from above. One was Kisume, a little girl with a thing for buckets, since she was always in one. The other was Yamame Kurodani, who, in terms of species, was an earth spider even though she looked human. Both of them were inhabitants of the entrance, and by the way they quickly came down, they were probably trying to startle us for kicks.

"Boo!" They both exclaimed as they stopped in front of us.

"Hey guys…" I said with a bored expression on my face.

"What are you two doing out here?" asked Kisume.

"I'm taking Koishi up to the surface to sightsee."

"Oh, well have fun up there! Word of advice though, try not to talk to anyone there. Once they find out you're from the Underworld, they probably won't want to talk to you. And/or try to blow you up!" exclaimed Yamame,

"Um, point taken. Let's go, Koishi."

After a couple more minutes of flying, Koishi and I flew up the side of the cliff and reached the source of the geyser. It was a set of chambers filled with hot water, much like other geysers in Gensokyo. Because of our resistance to heat, Koishi and I could safely pass through without getting scalded.

As we passed through and out of the geyser, the sun shined brightly above us. I had rarely seen it since we almost never went to the surface.

"Wow, it's beautiful up here today." Koishi marveled.

"It sure is," I replied, "so, where do you want to go?"

"I'm not sure. I've heard a little about a little place called the Hakurei Shrine. They said it's the one way in and out of all Gensokyo."

"Really? Sounds interesting enough. Let's go take a look."

Both of us flew over Gensokyo. It was quite scenic, looking at the mountain that jutted out of the landscape, and the forests that dotted around it. To the east, Koishi spotted a lake that was shrouded in a thick mist.

"Look at that lake," Koishi remarked, "do you think there's something on the other side?"

"Hmm. We might be able to take a look after we find the shrine," I replied. I didn't really want to go see what was over there, but the trip wasn't for me. I wouldn't have cared to go up to the surface in the first place.

After about 20 minutes of looking around the assumed location of the shrine, we spotted a small building below us. We landed, and noticed it was a small Shinto shrine. There was nothing that seemed special about it, except that I could feel the faint presence of a magical wall where the shrine was facing.

"What a cute little place," Koishi stated.

"This is it?" I said with a bit of question in my voice, "well, it's not too shabby to say the least."

"Well, it shouldn't look too shabby at least," said a voice behind us. We turned around and saw a brown haired girl dressed in white and red miko clothing. In her hair was a large red ribbon, and two hair ornaments on each of the sides. She also seemed to be carrying a stick with folded paper tied to it.

"Hello, my name is Reimu Hakurei, I'm the miko of this shrine," she said, "I've never seen you before. Are you new here?"

"Uuuhm…" Koishi turned and whispered to me, "What are we going to do now? I've never talked to humans when I was up here before."

"I don't know."

"Hmm?" Reimu inquired behind us. I couldn't think of any way to avoid this. At least, no way without being rude or looking suspicious.

"Um, hi," I began, "yeah, we're new to the area and were just looking around."

"Where are you from?" she asked.

"Um well… from a land… far away from here," I said slowly.

She squinted, "You're not keeping any secrets, are you?"

"Uh no, not at all." There was a long pause, and she kept staring at us with suspicious eyes.

After a minute she broke the silence, "You're from the Underworld, aren't you?"

I had no idea how she figured it out so quickly. Koishi and I looked at each other nervously. Knowing our cover was blown, I decided to drop the act. "How did you figure it out?"

She pointed towards Koishi. "I've heard that Satori youkai have a third eye. As far as I know, the only known Satori in this part of Gensokyo are the ones ruling the Underworld. And you look a bit familiar."

Koishi began thinking aloud, "What?... Oh, yeah."

"What?" I questioned.

"Remember what happened when Okuu swallowed the Yatagarasu?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, I went up to the surface to find out who told her to do it, and I met the miko somewhere on the surface. So I guess I talked to her a little bit when I was up there."

I was a little surprised to hear that Koishi talked to someone on the surface before. But she seemed to be a human rather than a youkai, so I didn't know if the prejudice counted with her. "So, what are you going to do with us?" I asked Reimu in a serious tone.

"What am I going to do with you?" she replied in question.

"We heard that youkai on the surface hated the ones in the underworld," Koishi responded.

"Well, you don't have to worry about that with me," Reimu responded with a smile, "for one thing, I'm a human, not a youkai. Second, I'm not going to do anything to you. I don't care what you do up here as long as you're not causing any trouble. And third, not _every_ youkai hates the Underworld. Just a lot of them."

"That's good… I think." I said somewhat sarcastically, "Oh, by the way, do you know anything about that lake not too far from here?"

"Actually, I do. That's the Misty Lake. As you can probably tell, it's covered in a thick mist. What you probably don't know is that there's a mansion on the other side. That mansion belongs to a vampire originally from somewhere to the West. She's kind of childish, and doesn't like outside visitors."

"Okay, thanks for telling us, I guess we'll be going. Ready, Koishi?"

"Mhmm," she replied.

"Have a nice day," Reimu shouted as we flew off, "And swing by if you get the chance… And drop a donation while you're at it!"

As we flew over Gensokyo, Koishi said to me, "I kind of want to check out that mansion."

"I don't think they're going to let anyone in."

"Well, do you want to stop by the lake? Then maybe we can check out the mansion another day."

I knew she wasn't going to take "no" as an answer to going to the mansion, so I agreed. "Alright".

When we reached the lake, we sat down on the beach that lined it. Although it was always foggy at the center of the lake, the sun still shined over the sandy banks. Koishi and I sat down near the water. It was peaceful out there. We listened to the waves hit the beach. We never got to lay like this in the Underworld. Mostly because there was no "sun" to lay under, just the reactor that stood in the far end of the caverns. After about 3 hours, I reached over and nudged Koishi, who had fallen asleep on the sand.

"Hey, ready to go?"

She let out a brief yawn, "Sure, let's head back."

By the time we got back to the Palace, it was already "night". The reactor was a star underground that acted as our "sun and moon". It would glow a bright orange whenever it was day on the surface, then slowly shift its color to a dimmer blue whenever it was night. As we were about to separate to our rooms, Koishi asked one more question.

"We're still going to the mansion some time, right?"

"Right," I reassured her, "Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

My room was nearly identical to Koishi's. The only differences were the furniture and the color scheme. Koishi's bed was canopied for looks, she had a set full mirrors to examine herself, and she had a walk-in closet although she usually wore her yellow outfit. Her room was colored with light, vibrant colors. My bed didn't have a canopy, I had one mirror, and I had my small wardrobe. My room was colored in darker shades. Both of our rooms had large windows facing the reactor, and since it never moved, we always had light coming in. It was moved above the Blazing Fires for convenience after Okuu swallowed the Yatagarasu. If it ever bothered us, we had drapes for them.

I went to bed and thought about what we were going to do.


	2. Chapter 2: Public Issues

*August 4th. Noon. Palace of the Earth Spirits. Kitchen*

The kitchen was massive. Lined with countless cooking tools, ovens, stoves, and containers, it is a living being with the workers as its blood and organs. Since we were the rulers of the Underworld, the chefs always made the finest foods for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. After a few minutes of cooking and preparation, the head chef informed us that some ingredients for tonight's dinner had run out.

"Is that so?" I started.

"We're going to have to get more." Satori said.

Koishi replied with enthusiasm, "I can go out and get them."

"Are you sure? We could just send one of the workers out to get them."

"It's no big deal. I haven't gone to the city in a while. You want to come along, Hayato?"

"Sure," I replied apathetically.

As we walked into the city, Koishi stated what we needed on the list. "It says we need some cumin, truffle salt, and fennel pollen. I think there are two stands where we can get them.

As we walked through the streets, pedestrians, patrons and shop owners began looking at us; their eyes grew colder with every passing second. Some shops closed their doors. Children began hiding behind the legs of their mothers who were staring cautiously at us. Men just gave cold glances, then returned to their work. This had been happening for the past three years, but neither of us knew exactly why. Everyone used to enjoy seeing us out in public before. It was as if something new about us made us evil to all of them. Maybe they didn't like the fact that they were ruled by people who looked like teenagers, and were relatively young compared to many rulers in Gensokyo. Satori and Koishi also grew their third eyes a few years ago. With it, they were able to read anybody's mind, even mine. They were organic eyes that floated around them with cords attached to their bodies. Satori's was light red and had three cords connected to her head and wrists. Koishi's was purple with two cords connected to her feet.

Koishi kept her head down, and had a worried look on her face. "Why do you think they keep doing this?" She whispered to me.

"I don't know. Maybe it's because we're technically their superiors even though we look young."

"Do you think it has something to do with my third eye?"

"Like I said, I don't know. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's not like we can read their…" I trailed off, "oh."

She stared at me, "I could before," and then we kept walking. We made our way to the first stand; I walked up to the shop owner and told him what we needed. "We need some cumin."

The shop owner glared at us, and didn't say a word.

I glared back at him. "Well?"

Again, no response.

"Fine," I said, putting the money on his table, "I'll get it myself."

I went into the back and grabbed large container of cumin. As I walked out, the shop owner muttered something under his breath that I couldn't hear.

"What was that?" I replied, but he kept his silence. Koishi and I walked off to the next stand, not saying a word until we got there. When we approached the next stand, it was crowded with people, but as they saw us, many of them left; others gave the same cold stare as we walked by. I approached this shop owner the same way I did with the last one. "We need some truffle salt and fennel pollen."

"Make it quick. You're scaring off my customers," he retorted.

"Thanks for the excellent service," I replied sarcastically, and gave him the money.

"Okay. Let's go home," Koishi said.

As we walked, a few kids approached us.

"Hey, look at her!" said one kid.

"What's that thing?" asked the second, pointing at Koishi's third eye.

"It's called a third eye," said the third.

"It looks so weird," the second replied.

I clenched my fist as I listened to them.

"W-what?" Koishi asked nervously.

"Careful, she might read your deepest darkest thoughts!" laughed the first kid.

It was true that Satori and Koishi's third eyes were naturally able to read minds, but Koishi sealed hers off to avoid the grief her sister was receiving for it. However, nobody seemed to care about the difference, and she now had the ability to read and manipulate the subconscious of people. But she never used it, and never would out of ill will. It was never in her nature to be unkind unless they were an actual threat or enemy.

"Hey, I wouldn't do that!" Koishi told them.

"It doesn't matter," the third kid spoke out, "that thing makes you look like a freak!"

The three of them soon started chanting together, "Freak! Freak! Freak!"

Koishi began to look annoyed. "Stop saying that!"

"Hey!" I dropped the ingredients I was carrying and grabbed one kid by the throat. As he struggled to get out of my grip, I slammed him into the ground, causing him to let out a scream. My blood was boiling; I wasn't going to allow anybody to talk to Koishi like that. Bystanders began gathering around us. I held him down, holding my fist above me, "You want to say something else?! Come on! I dare you!"

"No! Let me go!" He screamed.

"Hayato let him go!" Koishi yelled at me. I loosened my grip on him, and he got back up and ran off with his friends, crying. The crowd was murmuring behind us.

"Let's get out of here," I said to Koishi. She nodded, glaring at me. I picked up the ingredients and we ran back to the Palace.

"There you are," Satori said as we approached the kitchen, "what took you two so long?"

"Um…" Koishi muttered.

I stepped in, "There were long lines at the stands. It took us forever to get there."

"Alright," Satori replied, "Dinner will be ready soon, so you should go wash up."

As the two of us walked up the stairs, Koishi stopped me. "You know, you shouldn't have been so rough on that kid," She said condescendingly.

She had a point. I was too rough on him. "Sorry…" I mumbled quietly.

She touched my shoulder. "But, thanks for sticking up for me," she said in a more forgiving tone, "I guess it's what a brother would do."

I smiled back at her; had Satori witnessed that, she would have scorned me to no end.


	3. Chapter 3: The Scarlet Devil Mansion

[If you're reading this, then congratulations! You've made it past the horrible first two chapters of the story. Now theoretically, this is where things are supposed to get interesting. If not, well, I wrote this when I was 15, so Iunno .-. Have fun]

*August 11th. 10:00 A.M. The Misty Lake*

The following week, Koishi and I flew into the mist of the lake to reach the other side. While the view was diminished, we could still see faint glows of fairies and spirits wandering the fog. We had heard that the mistress of the mansion claimed to be a descendant of Vlad the Impaler, and it was also rumored that when she killed her foes, their blood would be splattered on her dress, and this happened so often that it became dyed a deep Scarlet. This gave her the title, the Scarlet Devil. A few years ago, she had attempted to shroud Gensokyo with a dark mist so that she could walk outside without hindrance of the sun. She was stopped, however, by a shrine maiden, and had no choice but to use parasol when she wanted to live the mansion; though rarely she ever did. We kept this in mind as we searched for the mansion.

"Look, over there!" Koishi said as we approached the other side of the lake. In the distance was the silhouette of a large clock tower with a complex underneath it. As we approached the building, we saw that it was surrounded by a metal fence, and a garden was seen on one side of it. I could feel a dark aura leaking from underneath the building. We found the Scarlet Devil Mansion.

"This place is amazing!" Koishi marveled, "It's as big as the Palace!"

"It is impressive," I agreed, "but the owner probably won't be too happy if we just fly over her property. We should find the gate and get in with permission… Or at least find the gate."

We circled around and landed at the mansion gate. Sitting in front of it was a youkai with red hair. She wore a green beret and somewhat unusual clothing of the same color. As we looked closer, she appeared to be sleeping soundly.

"Is this the gatekeeper?" Koishi questioned, "She doesn't look very good at her job."

I replied to her, "Well, it looks like we need to wake her up. No other way of getting in with permission." I poked at her shoulder with no result. Koishi came from behind and slapped her across the face. The sound of the slap was relatively loud.

"Gah!" she shouted.

I exclaimed, "Damn, Koishi!"

"Hey, who are you!" she exclaimed.

"Uh, we're here to visit the Scarlet Devil Mansion," I told her.

"Ha! Fat chance! First off, I'm not letting anyone in. Second, I doubt you'd even want to come in. The Mistress hates visitors, and she'd blast you into a pulp in to time! So, I suggest you just head on back to where ya came from."

"Well, you see, I can't do that."

"And just why not?"

"Because I promised her I'd take her to visit it. I'm Hayato by the way and this is Koishi."

"I'm Hong Meiling and I'm the gatekeeper of this mansion. And sorry to break it to ya, Kikato, but I can't let anyone in."

"Well, another thing is, I'm not taking 'no' for an answer. So if you'll kindly let us through…"

"Hahaaa not gonna happen." She said sternly.

"Fiiiine we'll do this the hard way," I sighed.

Koishi grabbed my arm. "Kikato what are you doing?"

"Relax. I can handle it," I told her.

Meiling jumped and fired a burst of multi-colored danmaku. Koishi and I dodged quickly out of the way.

"Take cover, Koishi!" I yelled.

"Hey! You know I can protect myself just fine!" She retorted.

"I know that! But I want to take her on myself! I haven't fought anybody in years!"

Meiling ran up and began demonstrating a thorough knowledge of martial arts. I precariously dodged each of her attacks. For some reason, my reflexes were always good, and the years of sparring at the Palace also taught me plenty of close combat. I attempted to deliver my own punches and kicks which she dodged. For five minutes we went at each other like this, but it was clear she knew more about hand to hand fighting than I did. At last she managed to kick me in the chest and follow up with an upper cut which sent me flying. I managed to recover and landed on my feet a couple yards away from where I was standing.

"Not bad!" Meiling shouted, "But too slow!"

I began thinking to myself, I couldn't let this fight go on for too long. Her martial arts are too good. I began to fire my own danmaku. As I suspected, she dodged every bullet. She replied with another burst of her danmaku, which I also dodged. Immediately after that, she ran up and delivered several punches to me. I staggered backwards and shook my head. Once more, she gave a powerful uppercut to my jaw, and I fell backwards.

"Ha, Give up!" She exclaimed, "you're not gonna win anytime soon!"

"Phew, so the warm-ups over?" I replied with a casual tone.

"Oh, come on! I got you on the ropes!

I got up and fired another burst of danmaku that she dodged. Before she could land, I charged an amount of energy I had and shot out a small column of energy. This apparently took her by surprise, and it landed a direct hit. She fell to the ground a few feet away, and was knocked out.

"What?" Koishi remarked, "Only one hit?"

"Yeah, I thought she'd be a little tougher," I sighed, "Oh well, I guess we'll head in."

Inside the mansion, it was pretty dark. Most of the rooms had no windows, probably to compensate for the Mistress's hate for sunlight. The style of everything was very different to what we had in the Palace. As we walked, we kept seeing a number of fairies working inside the mansion and looking at who the visitors are. Some carried things around, and others were discussing with each other the tasks of the day.

Eventually, we ended up in a massive library where bookshelves seemed to extend up to the ceiling of dizzying heights. There were books ranging from all types of different information, including a fictional section. One of the books was titled, _Magic Wars: Hunted_ by James Bartosh. What kind of name was James? Fairies could be seen carrying books and reading on the various levels of the library. I saw one of them head a two pairs of bat wings. One pair on her back, and the other on her head. She flew around near a girl dressed in one looked like a purple night gown and night cap. In her hair, which was also purple, were two or three ribbons, and on her cap was the shape of a crescent moon. She seemed to be engaged in a large book about elemental magic, and gave directions to any of the fairies that talked to her. As far as we knew, she was the one in charge of the library, so we approached her.

"Hmm? Can I help you?" She asked as we walked over to her.

"Hi," I replied, "I'm Hayato and this is Koishi. We're looking for the Mistress."

"Really? My name is Patchouli Knowledge. I am the librarian for the mansion, as well the Mistress's tutor. And this is my assistant, Koakuma," she said, pointing to the girl with the two pairs of wings. Patchouli looked at Koishi, then at her third eye. "A Satori?" she stated, "Interesting. Only a few notable Satori live in this region of Gensokyo. You wouldn't happen to be part of the royal family, would you?"

"Huh? Yes, I'm a Komeiji," Koishi replied.

"May I take a look at your third eye?" she asked.

"Oh uh, sure."

Patchouli floated over and gently cupped the eye in her hands. "Fascinating. I've never seen a third eye up close… but in all the books I've read, the illustrations depicted them to be open. Why is this one closed?"

"Uhm…. Well…" Koishi said slowly.

I said to her, "Koishi sealed off her third eye a few years ago. The citizens in the Underworld didn't take kindly to Satori because of the mind reading ability. But… she can read and control the subconscious, and it didn't really help with getting the citizens to lay off…"

"That's tragic. I'm sorry to hear that, Koishi."

"You don't think my third eye is odd?"

"Not at all. All Satori grow a third eye some time in their life, and it's something people only make fun of because of their insecurities."

"Wow. Thank you."

"And what species of youkai are you, Kikato?" Patchouli said, turning towards me.

"Actually, I don't know. I was an orphan since I could remember, so I don't know what my parents were. But it doesn't really matter to me."

"Oh, sorry to hear that. But… I can feel a strong aura of power coming from you. It's not like anything I've ever seen before," she said.

"Really? I don't feel like I do."

"You have a unique power hidden inside of you, Hayato. Anyways, how did you get inside in the first place?"

"Well…." I said, scratching my head.

"You must have defeated Meiling. She doesn't let anybody in unless she's told to, and I've been hearing a faint ruckus this morning," she interrupted.

"Yeah, that might have been me," I said, a little embarrassed.

"Well, that's what she gets for sleeping on the job rather than sharpen her abilities," Patchouli sighed, "Well, I have many things o attend to, but you will probably find the chief maid in the upper levels of the mansion. I suggest you speak to her before approaching the Mistress."

"Thank you, have a nice day," Koishi said as we walked away.

We found a flight of stairs and ascended to the third level of the mansion. There were maids working throughout the halls. We ended up in the kitchen, where more maids were working and cooking. There was a scent of lavender and blood coming from the tea that was being made, along with other faint scents from the food being prepared.

"Hmm. Not a bad kitchen. It's similar to ours," I said, smelling one of the nearby pots, "Is this… human?

"Just what do you think you're doing here?" A voice said behind us. We turned around and saw a maid that appeared to physically be in her twenties. She had bright red eyes and silver hair worn in long braids on the side of her face. She also wore a white maid's headband and a blue and white maid's outfit.

"Huh?" I said, moronically.

"For one thing, we're very busy and need all the space we can get. Second of all, who are you?" She asked.

"My name is Hayato, and this is Koishi," I routinely introduced, "We came here looking for the chief maid."

"That would be me," she stated, "My name is Sakuya Izayoi. I am the Chief Maid for Lady Remilia."

"That's the name of your Mistress?" I asked.

"Indeed it is, but she doesn't like to be disturbed. So I recommend that you be on your way."

"Well, I promised Koishi a full tour of the place, so that' what I'm going to do," I retorted. Koishi glanced at me briefly.

"I see," Sakuya said sternly, "shall we settle this in a roomier location?"

"Fine by me"

"Then please, follow me."

Sakuya lead us into another windowless room that extended for hundreds of feet. Apparently, this was the dining room since there was a table in the middle that extended from end to end of the room. Along the walls were candles that looked like they were enchanted to burn forever. On the upper portions of the wall were portraits of a short girl with short light blue hair and red eyes. Her dress was light pink with a red trim on the sleeves and skirt, and she had a mob cap that had a red ribbon around it. Around her waist was also a red ribbon, but it was larger and had a white stripe. Additionally, she had a pair of bat wings. I quit looking at the indoor scenery, and began talking to Sakuya.

"So, what are we going to do in here? Sure is a lot of space."

"Now then," she said, pulling out a hand watch, "If you are able to defeat me one on one in a no-spell-card duel, I will allow you to see the Mistress."

I gave it some quick thought. I rarely fought anyone outside of practice, but when I did I preferred traditional duels over spell card ones. It felt more natural.

"Okay. Let's begin," I replied.

"Wait, Hayato," Koishi interrupted, "You know you can't handle attacks as well as other youkai. You need to be careful."

"Don't worry," I whispered to her, "I'll be fine."

Sakuya jumped in the air and pressed the button on the watch she was holding. After a quick flash, countless knives began flying through the room in every direction. I carefully dodged and weaved around each blade.

"How did you summon so many knives so fast?" I asked in wonder.

"It's simple," she replied, "This hand watch I have manipulates time." Immediately, she activated it again, one knife in her hand, and started flying through the room at record speed. She makes continuous passes by me, marking quick slashes. I summoned a pattern of my danmaku, and she slowed down a bit to dodge the bullets. Regardless of how fast she went, not one of my bullets managed to hit her in any way. It was going to be an interesting fight to say the least. I continued to fire danmaku until she slowed back to normal speed. She pushed her watch again, and summoned another arsenal of knives, this time with a mix of her danmaku. Dodging was a key part to surviving in a danmaku battle, but I had never seen so many projectiles coming towards me at once, except whenever Koishi or Satori really let loose during our mock fights. I was clipped by a bullet of energy, and lost my balance. Soon after, I received several knives to my body. I fell on the floor and got back up. After pulling the knives out, I was bleeding in several places. This was because I was born with a problem that no other youkai had. While youkai were resistant to physical attacks, I was completely susceptible to them, and I had no added resistance to magical attacks to compensate for it.

I started thinking about my situation. A direct approach won't do. I needed to catch her by surprise. I needed to find an opening that I could use. I spotted Sakuya getting ready to activate her watch, and I started examining her closely. Right before she activated the watch, she quickly glanced at it to make sure it was at its proper adjustment. I kept it in the back of my head as I dodged past the knives suddenly flying at me. I retaliated with an attempt at close combat. She continued to dodge every single one of my punches and kicks, probably because she knew all of Meiling's moves. It was no surprise that she was also good with a knife up close. Every chance she got, she landed a quick slash on me. I was in a dicey situation, but I was prepared for when she started to activate her watch again. Right as she glanced, I fired several of my special bullets of danmaku which were composed of light energy.

I had control over light and darkness, which was an ability that was unique to me. Along with my regular danmaku, I had two special types. My light danmaku was able to track its target to a limited degree and give off a bright and potent burst of energy. My dark danmaku was able to track its target at any angle, and split into two if someone tried to disperse them.

The burst of light from my danmaku temporarily blinded her, and I followed up with another regular burst. This time, they hit spot on, and she grew a little weaker. Surprised by this, she quickly activated her watch without looking, and began flying around the room as she did before. I threw my dark danmaku at her this time. No matter where she went, the bullets followed. I eventually summoned enough bullets to constrict her movement, and she stopped, attempting to cut them away with her knives. They divided as she tried, and all landed a direct on her, creating a small explosion. Out of the smoke, Sakuya fell to the floor, essentially beaten. I gave a brief sigh before stopping to register the pain I was enduring. I had been hit by danmaku bullets countless time before, and was used to that, even getting a large amount of open wounds, but this time I didn't handle it as easily as I normally did.

Sakuya got off the floor, brushed herself off, and spoke to me. "Well, that was a bit unexpected. I suppose you are competent enough to see the Mistress. However, if I'm called in to scrape your body off the wall, just know that I won't be surprised."

"Um, thank you?" I said, still thinking about my wounds.

"Her room is just down this hall."

I proceeded down the hall with Koishi, and started to think. I was in no condition for another fight. And if the Scarlet Devil was as powerful as they said, Sakuya really wasn't joking.

We approached the room at the end of the corridor. Inside, it was dark, and lit with a few candles, but there was still plenty of room. At the other end was a girl sitting in a chair, and sipping tea. She looked over at us with glowing red eyes. Her hair and clothes, and wings matched that of the portraits in the dining room. We were staring at the face of the Scarlet Devil.

"Two questions," the girl said, putting down her tea, "what are you doing here, and how did you manage to get this far?"

"We came here to look at the mansion," I replied.

"And you are?"

"My name is Hayato. This is Koishi."

"And I'm Remilia Scarlet. Mistress of this mansion. Well, it's been a pretty boring day. I guess I should thank you for the fun I'm about to have."

"And that fun is…?" I asked, knowing all too well what she meant.

"Killing you, of course. Maybe I'll drink some of your blood before I finish. And I see Sakuya's already softened you up," she said casually, summoning a large spear, "Do you like my Gungnir? It's supposed to always hit its mark. Let's see how accurate it is to your heart."

Remilia flew forward rapidly, holding out her Gungnir. Koishi and I jumped out of the way, but her spear grazed my side. I landed back on the floor, clutching my wound.

"Hayato!" Koishi yelled out to me, "You have to let me handle this! You're not going to make it if you try to fight her alone!"

"Ergh! Okay… Just be careful," I said to her.

Koishi flew off and began her danmaku fight with Remilia. It lasted for about 10 minutes. She could have held her ground for a good while, but a stray bullet caught her off balance, and she was hit by the rest. She was sent flying to the wall, and was knocked out. Remilia turned her attention to me, and slowly flew towards me.

"Well, I guess it's just you and me for the time being," She called out, "Don't worry, I'll make this quick." She increased her speed, and approached me much like before. I picked myself off the ground and started jumping in any direction. Dodging the only thing I was capable of doing right now, and even then, I was barely escaping her attacks by mere inches. She summoned her danmaku, and made it much harder for me to move around. After taking several hits, I staggered back to the ground. At last, Remilia finally dealt her finishing blow, and thrust her spear through me. I couldn't fight the excruciating pain any longer, and let out a strained scream.

Remilia pulled her spear out, and I fell back.

"Hm.. I guess I could wait for the other one to wake up. Then we'll fight some more. Huh?"

To our surprise, I wasn't dead yet, and began glowing white. I soon burst into a column of light, and Remilia shielded her eyes. When the light dissipated, I was still glowing white, my wounds were healed, and I was holding a black and white naginata. I marveled at the new weapon I was holding. My senses felt sharper, and I felt stronger. I had no idea what just happened, but I wasn't going to question it.

"Wow… So!" I said with a boost of confidence, "Let's finish this fight!"

Remilia opened her eyes, and let out a humored breath. "Even with your new toy you still won't defeat me."

Pole arm combat was my natural specialty. I practiced daily to fine tune it. I easily beat anyone using one of these, but I didn't always keep one with me because I didn't want to carry it around.

She swung her Gungnir, but this time, I easily blocked it with my naginata. Remilia looked shocked at this, and immediately fired her danmaku. My heightened reflexes allowed me to dodge each bullet without effort. I didn't want to waste any more time, so I charged a large amount of light energy, and swung it out through my naginata. It sent out a potent wave of light energy, which blinded Remilia and launched her into a wall.

Koishi started waking up. "Mmm…. Huh? Hayato, what happened to Remilia? What happened to you? You're healed. And where did you get that thing?"

"I don't know. It all just kind of… happened," I said, confused. A couple seconds later, I stopped glowing, and my naginata disappeared from my hands.

Remilia picked herself off the floor. "Ah, no fair!" she ranted, then quieted down to a softer tone, "but it was fun I guess. I'll allow you to come back to the mansion whenever you want. And next time, we'll have some tea."

"Okay?" I said, confused by her quick change in demeanor, "We'll be seeing you then."

She waved at us as we left. After we left and began flying back to the Underworld, Koishi started talking to me.

"Hey, Hayato, are you getting rusty? It's not like you to get worn out so fast."

"Hmm? I guess so. It's been a while since I've done any training."

"You would have handled it better if you kept on your schedule," she scowled, "speaking of which, what happened back there? All I remember was being knocked out, then I woke up and you were glowing and had that weapon."

"I don't know. It was like something kicked in when I was about to die…"

"You were about to die?! Hayato, you have to be careful!'

"Well, yeah, I know, but…"

"No, Hayato!" She stopped in midair, "You _have_ to be careful! There isn't a second chance when you die… you can't just come back… We've known this since we were born. You have to take it seriously. What were you thinking rushing in there like that?!"

"Koishi… I…" I looked down. "I'm sorry…" I told her, "I guess I… just wanted to make sure you got what you came for…"

"Well, just…" she sighed, "Just don't do anything you'll regret, okay?"

"I won't."

"Promise?"

"Promise."


	4. Chapter 4: Secrets and Alignments

*August 12th. 11:00 A.M. Scarlet Devil Mansion Library*

I went to the mansion alone to ask Patchouli about what happened. Koishi stayed behind to help Satori manage the Palace. Plus, this was a personal task. I found Patchouli sitting at a table, reading the same book on elemental magic that she had yesterday. She must be studying a lot to retain so much knowledge about Gensokyo's magic and lore. And since she never spoke to anyone outside the Mansion, she was the perfect person to consult about the matter.

"Hi Patchouli," I said, approaching her.

"Hello again, I see you've come back."

"I came to ask you about something."

"About your recent skirmish with Remilia? I've heard a little about it. You were nearly finished, then somehow managed to best her after a sudden boost of energy."

"That's just it. I don't know where that power came from."

"Well, please tell me the details," she requested, closing her book.

"Alright," I gathered my thoughts, "When I began fighting Remilia, I already had several wounds from my previous battle with Sakuya. After wearing me down even further, Remilia struck a blow on me that I thought was fatal, but in an instant I started to glow white, and was surrounded by a column of light. After that, my wounds were healed, my senses and strength were higher, and I was wielding a naginata, And conveniently, I'm naturally skilled at using pole arms. Nothing like this ever happened to me before."

"Interesting. Allow me to do a little research." She flew up and pulled a book out of a shelf, and brought it back to her table. She flipped through the pages and stopped at a description, and began muttering the words to herself. After about 5 minutes, she looked up at me with a blunt stare. "I suggest you grab a chair. This will take a while."

I sat down at her table across from her, and began my wait. It took 2 hours before she finally nudged my shoulder, snapping me out of a bored trance.

"Hayato, from what I've gathered, you have a store of reserved energy that is locked inside you. This is the same power I sensed in you yesterday, and the only time it unlocks is when you go through either extreme physical or emotional stress. It acts as a type of emergency trigger. It unlocks long enough for you to deal with the problem, then locks itself back when you're safe. Do you still feel some of the effects it had on you yesterday?"

I began to think. "Actually, yeah. My senses still feel sharper, and I still feel stronger."

"It's just as I thought. There is a side effect that retains a small portion of the reserve's power to make you basically more efficient to decrease the need for your reserves. Thus, each time your reserve power activates, a small bit remains usable at any time, increasing your survivability. However, this has never been observed in a youkai that I know, so I don't know why you have this ability."

"Do you think this can help me find out what kind of youkai I am?" I asked her, "That is, if I am a youkai…"

"It might, but I'll have to do more research. In the mean time, you should try to explore your hidden power some more."

"How do I do that?"

"Like I said, you need to be put under high physical or emotional stress to unlock it for a limited amount of time. Sakuya and Remilia might be able to help you." She immediately flew off in search for more books, so I made my way upstairs.

I searched for Sakuya on the third level of the Mansion. It was quieter than yesterday, though a few maids were still working. I looked in the kitchen but found no trace of her. I soon came across a parlor near the dining room. I peeked inside and found Sakuya serving tea to Remilia, who was sitting in a chair. In the room were a few chairs, and a portrait of Remilia which hung above a fireplace.

"Am I interrupting something?" I asked as I knocked on the door.

"Not at all," replied Remilia, "Have a seat. Sakuya will fetch more tea."

Sakuya pulled out and activated her watch. After an instant flash of light, Sakuya had a platter with a cup of tea, which she gave to me. I took a sip, and it tasted like a mix of lavender and what I assumed to be blood.

"So, what brings you back to my mansion?" asked Remilia.

"I came to ask Patchouli about what happened in our fight yesterday. She told me that I have a reserve store of power that acts as an emergency trigger whenever I'm in danger."

"That explains how you bested me yesterday. For the record, I could have beaten you if I really wanted to," she said smugly.

"Riiight," I replied with a tone of doubt, "Anyways, I need to explore this new power, and the only way I can do that is to undergo heavy physical or emotional stress."

Remilia finished her sip of tea. "I see. Sakuya, please show Kikato to the basement."

"Are you sure, mistress?"

"You know better than to question my decisions, now go on."

"Of course, mistress. Please follow me Hayato."

Sakuya lead me down into the Mansion's lower levels. It got progressively darker as we walked, and the floor was composed of cold stones. With each step, the air became colder, but not because we were in a basement. A dark aura was flowing throughout the basement halls, and was the same one I sensed leaking out when I flew over the Mansion. I began to wonder what Remilia was keeping down here. Maybe it was a demonic pet of hers, or a prisoner that she locked up. Sakuya eventually lead me to a steel door protected by magical enchantments and large chains and locks.

"We're here…" Sakuya said with a slightly nervous tone.

"Sakuya," I asked, "What's down here?"

"I'll tell you… but you must swear to keep it a secret from anybody you don't know. We call it "the dirty little secret" of the Scarlet Devil Mansion.

"Alright. I swear not to tell anyone."

"Remilia isn't an only child," she began, "Over 500 years ago, Remilia Scarlet was born. 5 years after that, so was another Scarlet. Her name was Flandre. At first, she appeared to be normal like Remilia, but as time passed, her mind grew unstable. We were slowly losing control of her. Whenever she encountered a human, she tore them apart, while receiving little blood to actually drink. So, to protect both her and everyone outside, Remilia's kept Flandre locked down here. Before, I used to bring her meals cooked out of human and served them to her. But a few years ago, it seems she's lost any remaining sanity she had left. She attacks anyone she sees, even Remilia, so I can only slip her meals through the door and close it back. On the bright side, she still hasn't made any attempts to escape, but I've kept the door sealed just in case…"

"Sounds like a tragic life,,," I said solemnly.

"It is a tragic life," Sakuya replied, "but it's for everyone's safety. But this is also the best way to put you under physical stress, if you still want to."

"I'm ready."

"Then I'll unlock the door. Shout my name if you want to come out…. But make it fast."

She suppressed the magical seals on the door, and removed the chains, allowing them to fall to the ground. The released a loud clang as they hit the stone floor. Sakuya slowly opened the heavy metal door, and I entered a dark, barely lit chamber. Blood was stained on the walls. On one corner of the room was a torn up bed; on another corner were some furniture that had partially converted into toothpicks. The dark aura grew stronger, and I could feel its increasing pressure. I felt as though I was going to be crushed by the weight of it. On the other side of the chamber was the silhouette of a girl who was shorter than Remilia. As I got closer, I saw that she had blonde hair which was tied into a ponytail on the left. She wore a dirty red and pink dress, and a pink mob cap similar to Remilia's. Her wings were composed of a type of metal with several crystals that glowed a spectrum of colors.

She looked at me, and her eyes glowed a sinister red, more than her sister's. As she stared at me, a twisted smile came on her face. She began walking towards me, bearing her claw-like nails. I felt my heart begin to beat faster, and as it did, her pace quickened, her aura getting closer. I knew I needed to undergo stress, but if I just stood her, she was going to kill me before I could even use my power. I readied myself to jump out of her way when she charged. And the instant I thought about it, that's what she did.

She shrieked, and flew towards me at break-neck speed. I jumped to the right, but she scratched my torso. It was an amazing hit. I thought she barely touched me, but I already had a large gash where she struck. Flandre came around and continued charging at me, landing quick and devastating blows with each pass. At the rate this was going, I was going to hit my limit in no time. I really hoped it was going to kick in like Patchouli said, or I'm not going to make it out of here alive. Finally, Flandre swiped me clean across my chest, and I hunched over, clutching the wound.

"Argh!" I groaned, but at last my white glow returned, and so did the column of light. Flandre shielded her eyes, as she wasn't used to bright light for years. The light disappeared, and I wielded my naginata like before. The only difference this time was that I felt even stronger and more agile than when it was activated the first time. As Flandre recovered from the light, she attempted to charge at me again. I quickly summoned a barrier of light, which deflected her attack. Surprised by this, she summoned her personal weapon, Laevateinn, which emitted fire. She flew forward, brandishing her sword. I blocked each of her attacks with my naginata as if I already saw them coming. Clearly getting frustrated, Flandre fired a broken pattern of danmaku at me. Even without my reserve power, the gaps in the patterns made it easy to dodge. Her unstable mind must have been unable to complete them. The blade of my naginata constantly emitted a small wind of light around it, and I was curious to what it did. First, I allowed Flandre to come at me, and I deflected her attack, then I retaliated and swung my naginata at the air. This caused a wind of light energy that threw her back. Next, I lured her to the ground and dodged her attack. Flying back up, I fired a beam at her that trapped her body in a light crystal. I could see Flandre struggling to get out of it, slowly showing an expression of sadness. She hadn't been beaten by anybody in a really long time. I stopped glowing, and my naginata disappeared. Somehow, I knew the crystal was going to dissipate in a few minutes.

"Sakuya!" I called out, "I'm ready to come back in."

Sakuya cautiously opened the door, and I looked back before I stepped out.

"Bye, Flandre. I'll see you again soon," I said to her.

She stared at me silently, keeping the same sad expression, then gave a faint sound that sounded like a "bye". After a few seconds, I walked into the hall, and Sakuya closed and sealed the door. I walked back to the library to tell Patchouli what just happened.

"Then my theory was correct. Your reserves kick in during times of danger. And, your naginata enhances your light energy. Did you try using your dark energy?" Patchouli asked.

"Not yet. By the way, do you know about the basement?"

"The 'dirty little secret'? Yes. What about her?"

"She doesn't speak a lot, right?"

"Not at all, actually. The last time she's talked to anyone was five years ago. She hasn't uttered a word since. At least not that we know of."

"I heard her mutter something when I left the chamber."

"What?" she asked, her eyes widened, "That's impossible. Are you certain it was her?"

"She was the only source it could have come from," I said assuredly.

"Well, what did she say?"

"It was very faint, and I could barely hear her. But I swore she said 'bye' to me after I said bye to her."

Patchouli stared at her table, thinking for a few minutes. "Hayato, if what you are telling me is true, you may have opened up an opportunity for us to reach out to her. We can… We can bring her back! Maybe during your fight, something clicked inside her head. It could have been anything. It might have been you; it might have been the fight. She hasn't seen a challenging opponent in years. Or… the exposure of the light energy may have barely cleared her mind. You have to look more into this, Hayato. It might be a ground breaking discovery."

"Alright," I said to her.

"Give her some time to recover from today. Come back tomorrow, and when she triggers your power, do what you can to gather more information."

*August 13th. Noon. Scarlet Devil Mansion Basement*

"Open it," I told Sakuya. I was back in the basement for the second time. I didn't like the fact that I was using this girl to test my abilities, but now I had a more important mission.

I stepped into the chamber, Flandre's dark aura pressing against me. At the same time, it started to feel nice. The darkness of the aura flowed around me both subtly and intensely at the same time. It was almost as if it was calling out to me, waiting to be absorbed into a new master. I shook my head and continued inside. Sakuya shut the door behind me. Flandre was standing on the opposite side of the room like last time. She locked onto me again with her glowing eyes, and began to slowly approach me.

"Hi, Flandre," I said to her, hoping to get a response. She stopped, and gave me a blank expression. "My name's Hayato."

She stared for a few more seconds, then shook her head, and began charging at me. Knowing my power would activate, I stood there to take the blow. She clawed me down my left ribs, and I expected to be in extreme pain. But to my surprise, the wound was shallow, and didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. At the same time, my power didn't show up yet. Patchouli was right. I was getting stronger each time it happened. Flandre didn't hesitate though, and summoned her Laevateinn again. She cut a deep gash down my right shoulder and arm, and the pain escalated enormously. This time, my power kicked in again, and I wielded my naginata. I discovered I could teleport short distances, and did so up to the wall near the ceiling. Flandre looked around and spotted me; when she flew close, I flashed a bolt of light my naginata, and she stopped, stunned. I teleported back to the ground, and pointed it at her. I charged energy into the tip, and fired it at Flandre. She recovered from her daze, and just barely dodged the beam. When it hit the wall, it bounced off and headed back for Flandre. It struck her on the back, and she fell face forward onto the ground. I could hear her crying as she laid there, so I stopped; my naginata disappeared, and my power locked again.

I walked over to her and picked her up off the floor, and set her back on her feet. Her face was dirty, and was being barely cleaned by her tears. She was quite a bit shorter than me, even than her sister, so I had to kneel down to get at eye level with her. When she stopped crying, she looked at me. Her eyes weren't glowing anymore, but they were still clouded.

"You alright?" I asked her in a quiet tone. I was still cautious and kept my guard up in case she attacked.

She wiped the tears off her face and slowly nodded at me. I got up, and told Sakuya to let me in. As I stepped through the door, I looked back and saw Flandre standing still, still looking at me before Sakuya shut it. I walked back to tell Patchouli.

"So, it took longer for your powers to activate? Then your body is getting stronger to compensate for the increased danger. What about Flandre?" she asked.

"She responded again today. She didn't say anything, but she could clearly understand my words when I talked to her."

"Intriguing… There's a possibility that the light energy from your naginata is removing some of the darkness in her mind. If you keep this up, it could make way for us to be able to communicate with her again, and deal with the root of the problem."

"That sounds great," I replied.

"You need to tell Remilia about this. She's Flandre's older sister, after all."

"Right."

I walked upstairs, and found Remilia and Sakuya in the parlor again.

"Back again, I see," said Remilia, "how are your play dates with my little sister?"

"Remilia." I said, sternly to her. She looked at me silently. "Have you heard your sister's voice lately?"

Her eyes widened, "What are you talking about, Hayato?"

"She's been responding to me. She might be able to come back mentally."

"It… it can't be… You're sure about this?"

I nodded to her.

She slouched back in her chair with an astonished look on her face. "This is… amazing… I've never been able to make progress with her… Do you think I could get to see her?"

"In time." I replied, "It will still take a while before we can be sure she won't attack anyone."

"Oh, right…"

"Also, I need a new way to test my powers. It's not right exploiting Flandre like a test dummy," I said sternly.

"You're… Absolutely right… You can use either me, Sakuya, Patchy, or Meiling."

"Alright. Anybody will work."

"Sakuya," Remilia pointed.

"Of course. Follow me," Sakuya said to me.

Sakuya lead me out to the Mansion's courtyard. It was large and didn't have many fancy decorations to damage, so it was good for having a fight. On one side of the mansion was a large garden. From what I had heard, Meiling manages the garden as well as guarding the gate.

"Ready?" Sakuya called out from the other side of the courtyard.

"Give me your worst! And make it quick!" I shouted.

Sakuya pulled out her watch, and a wall of knives came flying at me; I noticed that I was already suffering from a multitude of sudden cuts. As the approaching knives added to them, Sakuya fired her danmaku which sent me flying in every direction. This experimenting process was starting to be a real drag, but at least it had rewards. After 15 minutes of torture and bleeding, my power had finally kicked in. Patchouli was right, it was taking longer to reach the threshold, but my body was getting sturdier at the same time, even though I didn't change in appearance. I summoned my naginata, and it made a sudden flash, with a harmless beam of light pointed at Sakuya. When the light disappeared, everything around me became extremely slow. The knives that were flying at me were almost still, and so were the blades of grass that were blown off the ground. Somehow, my naginata either slowed down time, or it made me a lot faster. I walked around for a couple minutes and looked at the sluggish pace of the projectiles. After I finished sightseeing, I summoned my danmaku and "sent" them flying in different directions.

When I finished the setup, I looked at my naginata, and time sped back to normal speed. The bullets I set up caught her off guard and several managed to hit her. I took out my naginata again, and began fighting up close. Sakuya swung at stabbed at me, a knife in each hand, but I dodged each attack. I swung my naginata, and it landed a direct hit, but instead of making a cut, it sent her flying far off. I remembered that I still didn't try to use my dark energy with my extra power. I tried to summon my dark danmaku, but it didn't appear; I tried a couple more times, but still no result. I gave up on it and summoned a mix of my light and normal danmaku. Sakuya shielded her eyes from the bursts of light, and dodged most of the normal danmaku. Finally, I summoned a large dome of normal danmaku surrounding the courtyard, and flew to the ground at the center. I concentrated and drew the bullets in, summoning more after each one, and gathered them in the center; it was a trick that I learned from Okuu. I left no room for movement, and Sakuya was struck by a large amount of bullets.

After a few seconds of drawing in bullets, I gathered a large ball of energy above me, and shot it towards Sakuya. Still dazed from the dome, she took a direct hit, and was sent into the wall of the mansion. When I looked over, I saw that I took it a little too far. Sakuya was buried under a pile of rubble, and when I pulled her out, she was badly bruised and beaten. I had never actually hurt anyone when I was experimenting with my powers; when I took note of this, I instinctively summoned an orb of light energy, and sent it over her. The orb slowly broke up, and spread a small bright mist around her. Slowly, her wounds healed, and she stood up, looking confused.

"What was that?" Sakuya asked with a confused tone.

"I'm not sure," I said in the same manner, "I guess I can heal people with my power."

We heard slow, light clapping behind us, and saw Remilia sitting behind us near the courtyard.

"Well, that was quite a sight, Hayato," she said.

"Wait," I asked, "don't you use a parasol when you're outside?"

"Look at the sky," she pointed out. I looked up, and saw that it was completely cloudy. "Now that you're finished with Sakuya, I'll have a turn."

I hadn't discovered a lot of new things to tell Patchouli, so I agreed. We took our positions on the two sides of the courtyard, and began the fight, me allowing her to do as much damage as she could. She immediately summoned her Gungnir, and opened up with a barrage of danmaku pointed straight at me. I took the barrage head on, which hurt moderately, before the smoke cleared, Remilia followed up with several aggressive slashes with her Gungnir. I took several blows across the chest, and could tell Remilia was enjoying this, probably as payback for beating her before. Regardless, it still took her 10 minutes of cutting me down to do a lot of damage. She finally thrust her spear like she did in our last fight, and while it didn't go through me like before, it still left a large wound. A couple hits later, it was time for more experimentation. I took out my naginata, and shot a few bursts of light energy, followed by a concentrated beam. Since Remilia was temporarily blinded by the bursts, she took the beam head on. I looked closer, and saw that she was flinching from the amount of light, seemed to be emitting vapor; I assumed this was because she was a vampire and was sensitive to the large amount of light. I followed up with a swing with my naginata. Remilia tried to dodge, but the edge of the blade hit her arm, and she let out a pained scream. She landed to the ground, clutching her arm tightly.

"Remilia!" I yelled out, and landed next to her. I saw that her arm had a long cut going down it that had a slight glow, and she was bleeding. I summoned my orb, and put it over Remilia's arm. As the orb dispersed, it took longer to heal than it did with Sakuya, but eventually it was done. I decided to stop now, and my naginata disappeared. "That's enough for now" I said to her, "I need to ask Patchouli about this."

I went back inside to the library while Sakuya checked to make sure Remilia was okay.

"I believe you've stumbled upon your weapon's alignment," Patchouli said.

"Alignment?" I repeated.

"Some enchanted weapons read certain aspects of a target. Since your naginata seems to associate itself with light energy, it only deflects those who don't have its opposite energy. For example, when you struck Sakuya, it only threw her back because she had only so much dark energy in her, but when you struck Remilia, she had enough dark energy to pass through the naginata's protective barrier, which also caused more damage than with a regular blade. And it seems your light power shares that same alignment to a certain degree. Your healing orb healed Remilia's wound at a reduced pace because some of it was counteracted by Remilia's dark signature. Had you struck Flandre with your Naginata, healing her might have been impossible for you."

"There's one more thing, Patchouli," I said. She waited for me to continue. "It feels like I suddenly learned about the orb when I needed to use it, even the other powers in my naginata, like I had used it before."

Patchouli began to think, then looked at me. "You say you're an orphan, Hayato. Did your foster parents raise you as a child?"

"Well, yes and no. They did raise me for as long as I could remember, but the farthest I _can_ remember was when they took me in, and I was old enough to barely walk by then."

"So, you may have suffered some amnesia that has clouded your memory from before you were taken in by your foster parents. There is a possibility that your parents taught you some of these powers at an early age, and the memories of those abilities are coming back as you use your power. I'm going to continue my research. You should take it easy for now."

"I have one more thing to take care of first," I said, walking off.

I went upstairs to the parlor, where Sakuya was serving a tired Remilia.

"Sakuya, I need to go to the basement," I stated.

"You're going to use Flandre again?" she asked.

"No. I want to try to talk to her again."

"I see. You really want to help her."

Down in the basement, I entered the chamber again, and Flandre spotted and approached me as she always did. She seemed to forget me a little every time I leave.

"Flandre, it's me, Hayato. Remember?" I said to her.

To my dismay, she didn't respond, and fired her broken pattern of danmaku. I needed to communicate with her, but I had to knock some sense into her first. I couldn't risk clouding her mind even further with dark energy, so I fired off a mix of light and normal danmaku. Like before, the light danmaku temporarily blinded her, allowing the normal danmaku to land head on. She quickly recovered in midair, and started her charge toward me with Laevateinn. Amazingly, I blocked her attack using my arms. Had I done this during my first encounter, she would have cut clean through them. I pushed her back with a quick burst, and summoned my dome of danmaku. Flandre, being showered by bullets, was quickly brought to the ground. She slowly got back up, shedding her tears once again. I walked over and wiped the tears off her face. Her eyes stopped glowing again, and this time were a little less cloudy.

"You okay?" I asked, kneeling down to her again.

She slowly shook her head, looking down at her arm which suffered a small scratch. Instinctively, I summoned my healing orb, but it didn't glow as brightly as it did when I had my extra power. I disregarded it, and spread it over her arm. When Flandre saw her wound disappeared, a quick smile came and went. Before I left, I wanted to see how much she knew.

"Do you know what our name is?" I asked her. She nodded her head at an uncertain pace. "Are you sure?" I inquired. She shook her head. "It's Flandre. Remember now?" She looked down for a few seconds, then looked back up and nodded. "Do you know your sister's name?"

"R… Remi," she replied softly.

I nodded to her, assuming that was the nickname she gave to Remilia. I asked for Sakuya for the time through the door, and she said it was half past 4.

"Okay. I need to go, Flandre," I said as I got up, "Bye." She quickly clutched to bottom of my coat. She must have been scared that I wasn't coming back. "Don't worry. I'll be back," I reassured her with a smile. She reluctantly let go, and I waved to her as Sakuya shut the door. I walked back up to tell Patchouli my findings before heading out.

"Good to hear that Flandre's making progress, I'll tell Remilia when I get the chance," she said, "But what's this about healing her scratch? It should have been nearly impossible. Even for a small scratch."

"My orb was dimmer, and somehow it managed to heal her faster," I replied.

"You don't suppose you also have a hidden set of powers that have a normal alignment, do you?"

"Not as far as I know…"

"Have you ever considered trying to summon your naginata outside of your enhanced state?"

"Not really."

"Well, go ahead."

"Right now?"

"Yes, right now."

I concluded that it wouldn't hurt, so I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate, holding out my arm as if I was waiting for something to land in it. I felt something narrow weigh down across my palm, and when I opened my eyes, I saw my naginata in front of me. I fully gripped it and examined it. It looked exactly the same, except that it had no bright glow like before.

"Wow…" I marveled, "Do you think I can do this whatever other stuff I've done?"

"You've made most of your discoveries using your naginata, right? So using it the way you have may yield different results. But if this is the case… Do you think this could happen on a dark alignment? And if so, how does that power arise?"

"I don't know… but anyways, I need to get going. I'll come back tomorrow to see what I can do about Flandre."

"Before you go, Hayato, could you bring Koishi with you tomorrow? With her special third eye, she may be able to look into Flandre's mind, and see what's going on in the background. At least we'll have an idea of what's going on."

"I'll have to see," I replied solemnly, "she's been kind of quiet lately…"


	5. Chapter 5: Emotions and Repercussions

[Warning: Physical and possibly mental injury may occur to a character you like in this chapter. Proceed with caution.]

*August 16th. Underworld*

Koishi barely said a word for the past few days. Her warm smile morphed into a sullen frown, the shine in her eyes was replaced by dullness, and her overall cheerful personality became sulking and hollow. At breakfast, she merely moved food around her plate, looking down. This worried both me and Satori, but we knew why she was like this. The town wasn't letting up on the grief they gave her, and the only residents who ever bothered to stick up for her was Yuugi. After Koishi sealed her third eye, she was very carefree. Much more so than now, and the citizens' comments never bothered her. We expected this attitude to last forever, but this was clearly not the case. Now, Koishi stayed inside all day, not talking to anybody. And because the workers often enjoyed Koishi's positive spirit, they were beginning to feel down as well. I went over to her room to talk to her and see if she was going to vent her emotions. As I walked over to the open door, I saw she was sitting on her bed, staring out at the bright yellow morning glow of the reactor.

"Can I come in?" I asked, knocking on the door.

"Sure…" she muttered.

I walked in, and sat on the other end of her bed. "You're going to hurt your eyes if you keep staring at the reactor like that," I told her. She looked down, obviously depressed. "Got something on your mind?"

"Yeah…"

"Care to tell me what it is?"

"I don't know… I don't want to waste your time…"

"Come on, Koishi. You know we tell each other about our lives, good and bad. It's what we do as brother and sister. And besides, you're never a waste of my time," I said, smiling at her.

"Okay," she said, briefly smiling back. There was a short pause, then she began her story. "Everyone hates me… Every time I go outside of the Palace they keep giving me mean looks. They always talk behind me, and it's always about me. Or I hear what they're thinking. 'What a freak' they say or 'reject princess'. What do they want from me? To cut off my third eye or something? It's not like they're all perfect; even the Oni have horn on their heads. Is it because of my third eye? Or because of my position? I just don't know anymore…"

"You want to know what I think?" I asked her.

"Okay?"

"I think," I started, then sternly changing my tone, "you should just stop."

She looked genuinely surprised. Even I wasn't sure if I was going in the right direction with this. "W-what?" she asked, confused.

"I think you should quit being concerned with what they're saying about you. You don't see Satori or me getting down about it, do you?"

"No, but—"

"And they aren't trying to hurt you, right?"

"Right…"

"Well, if you really want them to stop, why don't you give them a reason? You're a really nice person. I'm sure you could convince them if you tried," I said, lightening my tone.

She smiled. "Thanks for the pep talk, big brother. I guess I'll go give it a shot." Koishi gave me a hug and walked out, probably to try what I just told her. She only calls me "big" brother because I'm taller than her.

I decided that I needed some fresh air, but some that was away from the city. I flew west towards the reactor, and landed on a ledge on the wall of its chamber. I began thinking aloud of what's been happening.

"Just what am I? In fact, who am I? I keep finding this power that I don't even need, but it keeps coming as I use it. Did my parents do something to me? Where are they? Are they even alive? I don't know…"

"Clueless, aren't you?" said a confident feminine voice behind me. It was a voice that I hated; one that I wanted to never hear again. I turned around, and saw a black-haired girl dressed in basically the same color. She wore black high thighs and red shoes, and her dress has a red yin-yang shape on the side of her skirt. From her right protruded three red metallic wings, and three blue arrowed tails on her left. Her right arm had a snaked wrapped around it, and she had a wrist band on her left arm. Combined with the dark red eyes, the description matched the name of only one person: Nue Houjuu. "What are you doing out here, Haya? Your 'family' giving you a hard time?" she said smugly.

"Nue… Didn't know you wanted to come back to a place so close to your old home," I said with the same tone. I hated her with a passion, and she was the only person to have the honor of receiving that feeling from me. Years ago, a few months after she broke out of her underground seal, she began harassing the citizens of the Ancient City. She said she did it because she was "bored and wanted to have some fun". She also tried to mess with the reactor to make it unstable, also for the same reason. On top of that, she has the nerve of claiming she knows about my past. That my real parents never existed, and that I was a 'mistake'. We've had multiple fights before, and I could tell I was in for another one. However, we never fought after the spell card system was repealed. Now it was time to test who was better than the other.

"Just happened to be strolling around the neighborhood," she said as a multitude of multicolored disk-like objects flew by.

"On another one of your 'outings' I see. I'm afraid I'll have to cut your trip short." I replied.

"Is that so?" she said, pulling out her trident which was roughly the same length as my weapon, "Care to escort a lady out?"

I summoned my naginata. "Gladly." She raised an eyebrow when she saw my naginata.

We both leaped back and launched thousands of bullets at each other, and both cleared out of them without a scratch. I fired a combination of light and dark danmaku: a pattern she had seen time and time again. She shielded her eyes from the light, and evaded the dark danmaku until they dissipated. I quickly flew up and started a pole-arm on spear duel. Our weapons clashed repeatedly, releasing loud clangs with each hit. I swung towards her and she dodged, flying back.

"Well look who's finally learned to use his naginata!" she shouted at me, "It's about time!"

"What are you talking about?" I asked, keeping my guard up.

"Hmph! Clueless!"

She sprang back towards me and we continued our fight, landing an occasional hit on each other. We flew in every direction in the chamber, deflecting each other's attacks. Our direction eventually set us fighting mere feet above the reactor. The heat was extremely intense, but was manageable given our resistance to heat. However, making direct contact with it would mean our demise. Again, we broke off, flying higher above the reactor, and fired danmaku at each other; this time, fighting while the bullets flew. Her trident managed to puncture a small hole in my abdomen, and my naginata replied with a cut down her shoulder. The fight could have lasted hours like this, but she finally wised up, and disappeared from my sight. She wasn't gone; she made herself unidentifiable, which was the most frustrating ability I've ever encountered in an opponent. She appeared behind me, and kicked me downward, sending me spiraling towards the reactor. I barely recovered, but grazed along the side of the reactor. I should have seen that attack coming. It was a fatal mistake—or at least that's what I wanted her to believe.

"What can I say? Clueless," she gloated, walking up towards my singed body, "looks like after all these years, I've come out on top. You had a good run, Haya. But alas, your time's just about up. Any last words?"

"Yeah… a few… if you knew so much about me… do you remember this?" I activated my extra power, and got up, ready for round two.

"You've discovered your g.." she cut herself off, her smirk disappearing.

"Well. Ready to go back to the surface?" I said confidently.

"Ha! Enhanced or not, you're hopeless!"

We engaged in another close combat duel, but I had the advantage. The added strength of my naginata caused her to back up as we fought. She flew back and fired off a large shot of danmaku. I charged my naginata, and fired a beam that barely pierced her shot. She quickly dodged, grazing the beam, and I flew up and swung at her. To my surprise, the naginata sent her flying rather than cutting into her. She wasn't as evil as I thought she was? That's impossible.

She recovered, and shouted from afar. "You don't know how that thing works, do you?"

"Of course I do!" I remarked, "It cuts things!"

"Wanna know what I think? Clueless!"

"Well, at least I'm not hiding my true face!"

I pressed one of her buttons. "Y-you shut up!"

"Did I strike a nerve?"

She growled, "Fine! If you want to see what I really am, I'll show you!" She landed on the ground, and immediately started to change form. Her entire body became larger and formed into that of a tiger. Her head changed to the crude form of a man's, and the tail of her tiger body morphed into a snake. She changed into what her species was. A Nue. I had only seen her in her true form once before, and last time, it nearly got me killed in a fight that was supposed to be stacked against her. I readied myself for anything. She leaped towards me at record speed. I precariously dodged, and when she landed, she fired off danmaku at an incredible rate. Even with my power, I could barely dodge the walls of bullets. She followed up with another leap, but I deflected her with my naginata. She landed on her (four) feet, and shot a lightning fast venom from her tail, which went into my eyes. My vision began to blur, and I couldn't see a thing. She fired another string of danmaku, all of which hit me head on, sending me to the ground. She followed up with a deafening roar that practically pierced my ear drums, and before I knew it, she pinned me underneath one of her massive paws.

"You don't even understand!" she yelled, her voice partially distorted by her true form, "I tried to help you! I stuck out for you!" She reverted back to her humanoid form. "You're clueless! And… you're just a bad memory…" she said, ending in a somber tone. Nue flew off, returning to the direction I assumed she came from. I got off the ground and began to think. What did she mean by that? Does she really know what happened to me before I lived at the Palace? Regardless, the venom wore off, and I saw Okuu flying up towards me.

Okuu was our pet hell raven, one of several. She had a humanoid form unlike the rest however. On her right arm, she had a large control rod for regulating nuclear power, and she had large black wings which were partially covered by a small cape. On her chest was a large red eye. Her job was to regulate the flames of the Blazing Fires and maintain the reactor, as well as keeping Koishi company whenever Satori or I wasn't around.

"Kikato, I shot down some UFO's that were heading for the city. Did you see any sign of _her_?" she asked.

"Yeah… I did…" I replied unenthusiastically.

"Well, where is she now?"

"She left… I took care of her…"

"Hey, why the long face?"

"No reason… I'm just thinking…"

"Okay… By the way, have you seen Koishi? I haven't seen her around, and it's starting to get late."

"What? She hasn't come back yet?" Okuu shook her head. "I need to find her."

I flew into the city, looking around for Koishi, and occasionally calling out her name. After 10 minutes, I spotted Yuugi on a rooftop.

"Yuugi, have you seen Koishi anywhere recently?" I asked.

"Let's see…. I think I saw her somewhere in the marketing area."

I flew over to marketing, and saw large crowd that was running in my direction. As I looked closer, I saw a figure dressed in yellow, green and a black hat. It was Koishi. I bolted downward, and landed between her and the crowd, blocking them with walls of energy. Koishi stopped and looked back at me.

"Koishi! What's going on?!" I yelled as I sustained the walls.

"T-they were chasing me… I—"

"Doesn't matter! Get back to the palace!"

Koishi ran off, and I threw the crowd back with a small burst from the walls. The fight with Nue got me a little inconvenienced, but now I was downright peeved.

"What happened! Tell me!" I demanded angrily, but nobody spoke up. "What did we do this time? Look at you funny? Why can't you just leave us alone?"

"W-we don't want any of you freaks reading our minds!" burst someone in the crowd. The rest murmured in agreement. This was the last straw. I was done dealing with their petty complaints. I let out an angry yell, and I shot out a beam of dark energy, and my light glow converted into a dark mist. I summoned my naginata, which was now emanating dark energy, and swung it at the crowd. In that one sweep, I unleashed a massive wave of dark energy that cut through anyone it came into contact with, then sliced into a nearby building. People began to scream and run, and I soon started to lose control of myself. I found myself flying up, releasing waves of dark danmaku throughout the city. I used my naginata to slam destructive waves into buildings, sending shredded wood flying in every direction. I hacked away at anyone within my reach, getting soaked in the splattered blood. Meanwhile, I could hear Yuugi's pleas for me to stop. What was odd wasn't that I couldn't stop, but that I didn't want to stop. Hearing people run and scream out of fear gave me such a rush, it was irresistible. I wanted to do it all day, and destroy the entire city if I wanted to, however, my conscience faintly loomed back into my mind, and I slowly halted my blissful rampage. When I came to my senses, I saw at least a dozen bodies laid out before me, mutilated in some way. In other directions, restaurants were destroyed, and multiple carts were converted into toothpicks. I was disturbed about what I just committed. In the distance were both Yuugi and Satori watching me. Yuugi had an expression of caution, while Satori looked distraught. I turned back around and flew in the other direction, knowing I couldn't face them right now.

I needed to think. What happened? Why couldn't I stop? Was it that bad? I landed on a ledge far from the city, and just sat there. What was Nue talking about? Tried to help me? Was I like that before? That's impossible. I was just a child. As I sat there, I could feel the ground beneath me rumble. I looked around to find the cause, and spotted a large hole above the city, ; more precisely, it was above the place I was at earlier. I felt another tremor, and rocks began to fall from the Underworld's ceiling. That hole wasn't there an hour ago. Did I do that? Okuu flew up to me.

"Hayato, you need to go back to the Palace," she said.

"Why should I?" I questioned.

"Because, we need to talk."

I entered the Palace Foyer, where Satori was waiting.

"Care to explain yourself?" she asked. Satori always acted as the eldest of the three of us, since Koishi was younger and I came into the family after both of them were born.

"I wish I could," I replied.

"So, you don't know why you attacked the city?" she said in a monotonous voice.

"I… I don't know. I was… really angry. I couldn't control myself. Literally."

She slapped me across the face. "You know better than that, Hayato! We're not five! Do you expect the citizens to stop hating you if you start killing them?"

"I know all that, Satori! I told you! I _couldn't_ control myself! I wasn't just angry! Something happened to me. It's never happened before…"

There was a long pause before she replied, and she kept the same agitated look. "Then, you need to find out what happened before someone important gets hurt. But first, you need to go talk to Koishi. She's at the entrance to the Remains."

The entrance to the Remains of Blazing Hell was a hole in the middle of our courtyard. There were other cryptic ways of getting in, but the courtyard entrance was the one we used the most. Koishi was sitting on a cliff side overlooking the Blazing Fires. When she spotted me, her face was sad.

"What did you do, Hayato?" she asked.

"Something happened to me, Koishi. It's something that's never happened to me before."

"You killed all those people… I hope you didn't do all that because of me…"I remained silent. "It's like… everything's starting to fall apart…"

As she said that, a large tremor shook the entrance, and a large boulder fell between us. I was knocked back, and when I got up, the cliff side and the boulder were gone, and so was Koishi. I looked down, and saw Koishi falling to the fires below. I flew as fast as I could, but before I could reach her, she was submerged in the canyon's magma. We were only resistant to some heat, but even the fires of the Former Hell were just too much for any of us. I dove in, which activated my extra power, the one I wanted, and I pulled Koishi out. When I took a look at her, she was suffering severe burn marks all over her body. To add to the horror, her third eyes completely missing, with the cords hanging from her body. I flew up and spotter the eye pierced by a sharp rock on the side of the cliff. I carefully pulled it out, then rushed back to the Palace. Bursting through the door, I yelled out for Satori, who came immediately.

"What happened?!" she shouted.

"The tremor caused a rock to fell in the Blazing Fires!"

"Put her on her bed!"

I did what she said, and put Koishi on top of her mattress.

"What do we do?!" she continued.

"I have an idea," I replied. I summoned my healing orb, and spread it over Koishi. Surprisingly, this wasn't enough, and I had to shell out a massive amount of power to heal the burns.

"What about her third eye?" Satori asked.

"I'm on it…" I said, hyperventilating from the energy I used. I took the eye, and lined the cords of it with those of her body, and fused them together with energy. Finally, I used the last of my energy to repair the damage done to the eye itself. All of Koishi's wounds were healed, but she didn't wake up. "There…" I gasped, "It's done…" I groaned, and fell onto the floor, and everything went black.


	6. Chapter 6: The Mountain

*August ?. Palace.*

"Wake up!" a voice faintly called outside my dream. I slowly yawned, wondering who was talking to me. The voice sounded frantic. "C'mon Hayato, wake up!" the voice shouted. I woke up, and saw Satori.

"Hmm? Satori! What happened?" I asked.

"You've been out for a week… you must have worn yourself out trying to heal Koishi…" she said solemnly.

"What happened to her?" I asked with a touch of fear in my voice.

"She's…"

"What? _What_?"

"She's in a coma," Satori continued, "The nurses have tried everything to wake her up, but she won't respond… But, thanks to you, she's at least stable."

At least she was alive. But if I'd never lost control of myself, she would have been awake right now. It was all my fault, and to make it worse, I don't even know why I did it. I needed to find out.

"Satori, I need to go back to the surface," I told her.

"But why now?"

"It's like you said. I need to find out what happened to me, because I've already hurt someone important."

I proceeded to fly out of the room, but strangely, I couldn't get off the ground. Leap after leap, I ended up back on the floor. I turned back to Satori, who looked as confused as I was.

"I… I can't fly." I tried to summon my naginata, but with no success, then I tried my danmaku, but the same result. "I can't do anything!" I marveled.

"It must be why you passed out," added Satori.

Even my senses felt dull. I was as weak as a human now, and it was a horrible feeling. Regardless, I needed to get to the surface. "Where's Okuu?" I asked her.

Satori told me she was in the Palace Garden, which was exactly where she was.

"Oh, you're awake," Okuu said.

"I need to go to the surface, Okuu."

"Then, go."

"Well, there's a complication. I'm going to have to ride you?"

"What?" she asked, looking confused.

"I've lost my powers. So now, I need a way up," I told her.

"Pfft well, I guess I could, but—."

"Great! Now kneel down."

"Hey wait a sec—ah! You're holding onto my wing!"

We shuffled around for 20 seconds until I got into position.

"Okay, let's go!" I said.

"This is an embarrassment…" she muttered.

Okuu flew me over to the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Meiling wouldn't let Okuu through the gate, so she stayed at the entrance. I entered the library and searched for Patchouli, who was sitting at her table like usual.

"Oh, hello Kikato. It's been a while. Did you manage to bring Koishi with you?" asked Patchouli.

"No. In fact, that's part of why I'm here."

"Hmm?"

"Last week, I became extremely angry, and I lost control of my body. I ended up killing a lot of people. I ended up causing tremors in the Underworld, and it lead to Koishi getting hurt. After I rescued her, I passed out until today. Now, I can't use any of my powers, and I can't even fly."

Patchouli paused for a bit, looking down. "Come this way," she motioned.

She led me into a brightly lit, white room with no furniture inside.

"This is where I go to meditate or think. It's the most private room I have."

"So, what are you going to do?" I asked.

"I need to analyze your body to know what's happened to your powers."

"So, why didn't you just do it out there?"

"Because…" she said, lightly blushing, "In order to get an accurate analysis, there can't be anything obstructing your body. So…"

"Wait, you want me to take off my clothes?"

She slowly nodded. This certainly was embarrassing for both of us.

"Is there another way?" I asked, hoping for the best. She shook her head. "Well, can I at least take off my clothes without you staring?"

"Sure… But I still need to look at you when I do the analysis…"

She turned around, and I nervously stripped down to my undergarments. "No obstruction at all," she repeated. So, off came the underwear. I told her I was finished and she turned around, subconsciously looking down.

"Oh… my…" she mumbled.

"H-hey! Just get on with the analysis!" I reacted.

"Oh, of course! Sorry!" She started to float a coupe inches off the floor, and her eyes began glowing. A thin wave of light past through my body as she "examined" me. A few minutes later, she finished, and landed back on the floor. "Alright," she said, "You can… put all your clothes back on…"

Ten minutes later in the library, Patchouli finished looking over the data in her head.

"From what I saw, you haven't necessarily 'lost' your powers. They've been put into a hibernate state in reaction to your loss of energy. And according to the data, your body is recharging energy at an unusually slow rate. This is quite a strange phenomenon. There are no youkai that I know of who react to a loss of energy like this. At the very least, they would still retain their ability to fly, and should regain their power within a few hours. But you say you've been out for a week, and your body hasn't even recovered a fraction of what it used to have."

"So, how do I get my power back?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. Your body should have recovered it all by now. You're just going to have to wait until I find some other way."

"Alright. I'll check in with you tomorrow."

I left the Mansion, and Okuu took me home. Since I had nothing to do in the Palace, I decided to go to the city and look at the damage that was done. As I walked, there were multitudes of rocks that had fallen from the Underworld's ceiling, especially in the area beneath the hole. People murmured words of fear and hatred as I passed by. My previous encounter with them didn't help improve relations. People who weren't staring at me, or walking away, were busy trying to remove rocks and boulders that had landed on their homes and businesses. I decided to help with the maintenance, and made my way to the "epicenter".

I found multiple boulders lying around, along with several wrecked buildings. One of the boulders near me started to rise, and beneath it was Yuugi, holding it up with one arm. She took her other arm and heaved it clear out of the city. She went over to pull on another boulder. I approached her to tell her I was going to help with the rocks, but as I got near, she turned around and punched me right in the stomach.

"What are you doing here?" she said, looking peeved.

"Agh! I came here to help clean up the rocks!" I said, gasping for air.

"Haven't you done enough? The city's practically in shambles because of you!" she yelled.

"Don't you think I know that?!" I retorted, "I didn't come here to fight you, Yuugi, I came here to fix my mistake! If it makes you feel any better, I can't even fly now. I lost all my powers…"

"Fine…" she said, "Get liftin'."

I made the conclusion that picking up small rocks wasn't going to help that much if I can't throw them out of the city, so I walked over to a boulder. It was more than three times my size. I put my hands under the side of it, and began lifting. To my surprise, I still retained a small bit of strength above an average human, which allowed me to lift it, but it took a lot of effort. I bent over, putting the boulder on top of my back for support. Since I couldn't just throw it out of the city, I had to carry it to the outskirts. So, I began my slow journey, from the center of the city.

As I walked, I could only barely see the road ahead of me, but I could hear the snide remarks coming from the citizens near me. "How pathetic," said one, "Serves him right," said another. They laughed at me as I slowly hauled this boulder. All the while, my arms were getting tired, my legs were hurting, and my fingers went numb gripping the rock. At the same time, a few kids managed to climb their way onto the boulder, and were now enjoying a ride at my expense. It took me two hours to get to the edge of the city, and when I reached the outskirts, I threw the boulder out a few yards in front of me. I breathed heavily, resting my arms and legs. It was the hardest physical work I had even done that didn't pertain to training, but I knew I wasn't done yet. I straightened my back, and walked back to the center.

When I returned, I found another boulder, twice the size of the last one. I took a deep breath, and started lifting. It was a long, arduous process, and that was just lifting the boulder. I started to reconsider what I was getting myself into, but since I got myself into it now, there might as well be no turning back. I balanced the huge rock on my back, and started my second walk. This time, I was walking at less than half the speed I was going last time. I must be pretty stupid lifting a rock this big, but now I was out of the center, and onto a street, so I just had to keep going. An hour dragged by, and my arms and legs were screaming for a break. I was a little over halfway when the pain in my legs started to escalate rapidly, and I yelled in pain. I kneeled down, unable to move in any direction from under the rock. I was caught between a rock and a hard place, and on top of that, I could hear the citizens still laughing at me. I could feel my shins buckling from the pressure, and it wouldn't be long before this rock would crush me like an insect. My arms were soon experiencing the same buckling feeling. Before the rock flattened me, I spotted people gathering around me, putting their hands and sticks under the boulder. Even more walked under to hold it up as a couple wagons rolled in. When they were in position, the people left, and let me use the wagons to push the boulder out of the city.

I don't know what their motives were for doing that. It could have been they actually felt sorry for me, or, if I ended up dying under this rock, it would have meant they had something blocking the streets. Regardless, I pushed the rock for another hour to the outskirts, and used the last of my strength to lift it off the wagons and into a nearby ditch that wasn't used. I collapsed onto the ground, hyperventilating, trying to regain the feeling in my back, and hoping to lose some in my arms and legs.

"You know, I could have just thrown those out for you," said a voice behind me.

I sat up and turned around, seeing that it was Yuugi. "What?! Then why… did you let me… walk all this way?!" I asked, still gasping.

"Because," she answered, "I had to see if you were telling the truth. It takes either a lot of dedication, or a lot of stupidity to carry two boulders big enough to kill a person. As far as I'm concerned, you're alright."

"Well, thanks for that… complement…"

"How about a drink, kid?"

Yuugi took me to one of her favorite surviving bars, and ordered some sake: a small glass for me, and a whole bottle for her. I took a sip of it, and nearly died choking on it. How could she drink all this stuff? Well, she is an Oni.

"C'mon, kid! You gotta gulp it down! Have another!" she interjected.

Another cup sliding towards me, I followed her directions and swallowed the whole thing. I was clearly of age (the drinking age being 18 for other youkai, and 6 for oni), but this was the first time I ever had alcohol. I started getting a little dizzy.

"Woah, Yuugi… Maybe I should lay off on it a bit…" I told her.

"Nah! It gets better after your third glass! Keep em' coming, bartender!"

What had I gotten myself into now? Before I knew it, I couldn't tell my left hand from my right. A few hours later, both of us were totally drunk, or at least I was.

"Wooow Yuugi…. This stuff's amazin'…." I mumbled, "never knew how much fun you could be…"

"Aah you gotta love it, kid. Oni could drink all day." She remarked.

"Who you callin' kid eh? I'm 160 years old… We could 'do it' right now and it'd be totally legal…"

"Pfft shut up! You don't even know what you're talkin' about!"

"Well sssoorry! You just look so sexy!"

"W-what?"

"Your whole body is just so niice…"

"Well, thanks…"

"c'mhear an' give me a kiss," I mumbled.

"W-well…" she trailed off. We both closed our eyes and leaned in towards each other, but before our lips made contact, we leaned back and burst out laughing.

"Haha, you're a riot, kid!" she yelled out.

"Aha! This is too fun! Aah, I'm going to 'do business'."

"Shut up man I don't need to hear that!"

I went into the bathroom, whistling, and relieved myself, but as I did, my senses cleared up. Did I just expel all of the alcohol at one time? I don't know, but it was weird. I walked out, seeing that Yuugi was only a little tipsy with all the bottles of sake she drank, while I was drunk with one. At any rate, I had to get home.

"It's getting late, Yuugi. I'll see you tomorrow," I told her.

"Seeya kid. And don't try to kill yourself next time!"

I returned to the Palace, and found Satori in the hall.

"How was your expedition in town?" she asked.

"It went… alright. Except…"

"Except what?"

My arms and legs were still in extreme pain from my near death experience, and I could barely stand. "I might need some medical help," I said as I fell to the floor.

"Oh no. Hayato! What did you do?" she asked.

"I might have overdone it a little… I think I broke something…"

Satori had a couple nurses carry me to my room, and attempted to treat my injuries, which only lead to partial healing, but they were at least stable.

"The nurses say you should try seeing your librarian friend to heal your broken limbs," Satori said.

"I'll go see her tomorrow. I have business to take care of anyway."

The following day, Okuu took me to the mansion. I told her that I was going to stay there for a few days to save travel time, so she left. I found Patchouli and told her about my injuries.

"Let's see," she did a quick analysis on my arms and legs. "Sorry, I can't do anything for you."

"Why not?" I asked.

"The healing spells your nurses used made the process incomplete, so my spell can't be compatible until they fully heal. It's complicated."

"So… have you found out a way to help me get my power back?"

"Not really," she said, "but you could try consulting a god for help."

"I don't know any gods."

"There are a couple goddesses near the top of the Youkai Mountain just north of here. But you must be careful. There are tengu who guard the mountain from intruders, especially humans."

"I'll keep it in mind," I said as I walked out.

"If I find out you died I won't be surprised!" she shouted back.

I walked up to the mountain. I didn't know how long it took to walk everywhere. I made my way to a valley at the base of the mountain. In it was a large waterfall with a river flowing from it. I started walking forward in the direction of the peak, when I thought I saw a shadow in the waterfall. I dismissed it as some kind of rock, and moved on. Moments later, however, a bullet of danmaku struck near my feet. I jumped and looked up, seeing a group of youkai flying towards me. This must have been the tengu Patchouli warned me about. Knowing I was in no condition to fight, I ran, still feeling slight pain in my legs. They frequently shot tiny bursts of danmaku at me. On any other day, I would have laughed at this, but now I'd be lucky to survive. Why am I so stubborn to do these things anyway? I need to learn to think things through before charging in; that is, if I ever get another chance. The tengu finally caught up to me, and surrounded me. They all wore outfits that were white on the top and partially red on the bottom, and were armed with small swords.

"Wait! I need to go up the mountain to talk to the gods!" I said to them, but they clearly weren't up for negotiation. When one approached me, I punched him in the face, but my arm hurt severely since it still didn't fully heal. I jumped out of the group towards the river, but of course my legs barely held up from the impact. My position wasn't improved, as I was simply surrounded again, and this time, against a ledge leading to the river. The tengu fired a series of danmaku bullets, which did devastating damage to me, and sent me into the river below.

Underwater, I could see the group disperse, assuming I was dead. They had a good reason to believe I was, since I was hemorrhaging blood in the river. The pain from the bullets forbade me from moving, and I sank to the bottom of the river, which was much deeper than I expected. Losing all my oxygen, my vision began to blur, and the last thing I saw was a dark figure jumping into the water.


	7. Chapter 7: Oh Geez

[So this is where my imagination started to grow tiny wings and I ended up creating a new location. I must warn you, this chapter gets a bit crazy. If you have issues with anatomical deconstruction, proceed with caution. Have fun.]

Was this what it's like to be dead? Just floating around in a black void for eternity? It's scary thinking this is all I'm going to see for the rest of my life. Wait a second, I'm dreaming again. I can hear something outside, but what is it? Beeping?

I opened my eyes, looking up at a ceiling of rough stone. I looked around, and saw that there was a strange item next to me, making a beeping sound. On it was some type of screen with a green line running across it. The line jumped up and down, then temporarily moved flat. It moved up in sync with the beeping. I was wearing nothing but my undergarments, and the rest of my clothes were nowhere to be found. The room I was in was less like a room, and more like a small cave that was carved out of a wall in a rectangular shape. A light hung from above the bed I was laying on, but the light wasn't natural, and wasn't from a candle. It came from some round glowing bulb. My arms and legs felt really sore. I looked down at them, and nearly had a heart attack looking at what I saw. My arms were lined with a blue metallic material that ran from the top of my forearms to my wrists. My legs had a similar design running from the bottom of my knees to the top of my feet. And both my arms and legs had this design on the front and back of them.

I didn't know what happened to me, but where ever I was, I wanted to get out. I saw there was a small cord running from the vein of my right arm to the beeping device, and I quickly took it off. When I did, the line on the screen went red, and the beeping wouldn't stop, like one sustained note. I covered my ears, not knowing what to do with it, then I saw the door behind me swing open, and a blue-haired girl stood in front of it. She looked at me, then the device. I backed myself into a corner, having no idea how to react. She rushed to the screen, and pressed something that made it stop. I uncovered my ears and looked at her.

She was a little shorter than me, and her face reminded me a little of Koishi. Her blue hair was tied into twin tails, and she had blue eyes. Her dress was also blue, and had several pockets near the bottom of her skirt, as well as on the top of her sleeves. She wore blue boots that looked like they were made for walking in water. She also had a dark green backpack behind her, with straps held together by a golden key. And she wore a green cap with a white wispy symbol on it.

She looked at me with an expression of caution, and I replied with the same look. We stared at each other for 5 minutes without saying a word until she broke the silence.

"Are you… alright?" she asked timidly.

I nodded my head in confirmation.

"Do you… need anything?"

I instinctively shook my head. She slowly walked out and began closing the door.

"Wait!" I yelled. She stopped, and looked at me. "Who are you?" I asked.

"Nitori," she said in a shy tone.

"Where am I?"

"You're in… I can't tell you."

"Why not?" I asked.

"It's… a secret… for now…"

"For now?"

She nodded.

"What… happened to me?" I asked, showing her the blue design on my arms and legs.

Her eyes moved to the floor, then back to me. She walked back in, and shut the door.

"I found you," she started, "in the river. You were really hurt and I… took you here. To help you."

"You… saved me?" I asked.

She nodded.

"Do you know who attacked me?"

She nodded again. "They were the tengu whose job is to guard the entrance to the mountain. They attack anyone who comes near."

"Do a lot of people come?"

"Um… sometimes… But not too many…"

"Why did you choose to save me?"

"I was in the area." She said quickly.

She appeared to be a bit suspicious. "What about this?" I asked, showing my new marks again.

"I… I…"

"Nitori! What are you doing? Leave him alone. I need him for testing," said a guy with glasses who was wearing an outfit almost identical to Nitori's, save for the different hat, no backpack, and pants rather than a skirt.

His hat was red, and had a black zigzag symbol on it. "Testing?!" I shouted.

He pulled Nitori out of the room and shut the door. I ran over to it and tugged on the door. It was locked, and made of metal, so there was nothing I could do to break out. At least, not yet. I gave a couple punches to the door, which only succeeded in making my arm hurt. After that, I looked for another way out, but all that was there were a few small vents, probably for air. The only other things I had in the room was a sink, a mirror, a cryptic toilet, and the light source. I figured I couldn't do anything until one of them came back, so I waited on my bed, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. I stayed awake for a few hours, then fell asleep for a couple. I woke up, with nothing changing. It was pretty boring, until I heard a hissing noise. I saw four of the six vents in my room emit a white vapor. I soon started coughing, and moments later, passed out.

I woke up, strapped into an operating table in a white room. I struggled to get out, but had no success. I looked over to my left, and saw a blacked out window. Above me was a large rack full of what looked like wires and metal bars., and my head was wired with several rubber suction cups. I heard a brief buzz, and the white bars above me began moving. At the end of each of them was some sharp object. Some pointed lights at certain places on my body. A thin wave of light scanned over me, the tools continued to move. My arms strapped down and completely exposed, the artificial appendages cut into my skin where the blue designs were located. I screamed in pain as they made their incisions.

They continued by covering my arms and legs in an electrical charge. The current surged through my entire body, my limbs tensing up especially. The unbearable pain dragged on as a second group of tools created sparks and flashes in my arms and legs, installing who knows what into them. I continuously writhed on the table, hoping for a loose strap to set me free, but no such luck. Minute after minute, the agony increased, and it went on for hours. I must have been dead, and this _must_ have been the new Hell. Eventually, they put a mask over my mouth and nose, which forced me to keep consciousness. All I could do was feel every heated needle, every rip and yank, every metallic twist and turn.

At last, everything stopped, and I thought I had found light at the end of the tunnel. That light turned out to be a dim candle. The first set of appendages ascended back into their racks, but a second group of much larger tools came back down. They looked like they were made for pulling (or ripping) things out. Another gas began filling my mask, and my body became limp, but I was still awake. The large tools approached my arms, tightly gripping something in there. The next second, they swiftly pulled back, and I was blind with pain. What kind of torture chamber was this? Unable to even scream, my eyes barely followed the tool take out a bloodied object, and set it onto a nearby tray. From its shape, it looked like bone. They did this another three times to me, then after they finished, they followed up with four dark objects of the same shape as what they just took out. Hey shoved them into the sockets of where they were supposed to be, then the large appendages ascended to their racks.

Of course, my torture wasn't over. Now, two of the largest tools, colored black, came down. The straps on my arms released, and a transparent beam suspended them in the air. The large tools, shaped like small chambers, move over my arms. Once they were in place, they pressed around my arms, and delivered an extreme electrical charge. There aren't words to describe what I felt. I was electrocuted for 10 minutes before it stopped. I stopped wondering where I was, and started wondering how I was still alive. That is, if I really was alive. Finally, the chamber-like devices disappeared, the gas in my mask allowed me to move again, and I was left to agonize in the constant pain for a while.

However, my table shifted slightly, and the first set of sharp tools and appendages came back down, this time, targeting my hands and wrists. I had to go through the entire process again, with every step. The same followed for my legs and feet. When it was all over, I was practically driven mad, and the tray next to me was full of both small and large bones. The last thing that happened was that a metallic collar was locked onto my nock, and my mask released the white vapor I experienced in my room, and I lost consciousness, finally. I counted about 10 hours in that room, but it felt like a thousand years.

Waking up from my pitch black dream once again, I found myself completely dizzy, and my arms and legs were almost numb. I was back in the cave. Dazed, I looked at my arms, which were wobbling and shaking. Through my blurred vision, I saw countless deep scars running through them. I lifted the covers of my bed, seeing that my legs experienced the same thing. The areas where the blue designs once were now had a black strip embedded in my skin. The strips had small glowing blue portions that were spaced evenly, and the strip itself has several thin metallic lines running from portion to portion. I had no idea what they did, but they must have drugged me to suppress the pain.

A few hours later, the drug began to wear off, and the pain in my limbs was returning. I groaned constantly in anguish. Nobody entered my room for a long time, extending into a measurement of days. The pain at its max, I rolled around in my bed for most of the time. I drank from my one water bottle sparingly. If I ever managed to fall asleep, it was only in intervals of 20 minutes before I woke up again, hurting. It wasn't long before I started wondering if they just abandoned me here, leaving me to die; I was starting to lose my mind. My stomach was crying for something to fill it, but I had nothing to give it.

Five days passed before someone finally opened my door. It was Nitori. I looked at her silently, waiting for what she was going to say or do.

"W-what's happened to me?" I asked desperately.

She looked down remorsefully, then back at me. "You're a test subject," she said, "One of _his_ test subjects."

"Who is _he_?"

"His name is Atsushi Tsutomu. He's a kappa… like me…"

"Kappa?" I inquired.

"Kappa are intelligent youkai who know a lot about science and engineering. However… we didn't work well together before. A year ago, Atsushi convinced the other kappa to take a drug that he made. The drug made kappa more willing to cooperate with each other. Because of this, Atsushi demanded that the other kappa work for him, and do whatever he said. And… we agreed."

"What are you doing here?"

"My job is to… capture humans who fall into the river, which are provided by the tengu. I'm also a supervisor for a part of his test subjects, not including you."

I was shocked at all of this. I was the victim of some sick project managed by one man.

"What is he planning to do with me?" I asked.

"It's… not my right to say…"

"Then, why did you tell me all of this?"

She fell silent for a while, then looked at the white hall outside my room. "I have to go," she said quickly, "Don't let them know I was here." She ran out and shut the door.

"Wait!" I shouted, but she was gone. There was a small window on the door, and as I looked out, I saw a few youkai walking back and standing around. They were tengu; they wore outfits with similar color to the ones on the valley, but the clothes were completely different. They looked thicker, and more padded, like armor.

I shuffled around in my room for the next few days, looking for something to pick the lock of the door, but I was trapped. The bed was a large welded frame with no extra pieces, the coat hanger was the same, and bolted to the ground. I looked out at the guards again, and on their left shoulder, they had a red patch with a black zigzag symbol on it. Soon after, the white vapor was pumped back into the room, and I was knocked out again.

Opening my eyes, I was in another cave-like room, similar to my last one. There were still vents lining the walls, but then I heard a scratching noise come out of one of them. The noise cleared, and it sounded like an outside voice.

"Test subject, can you hear me?" said a voice. The device made the voice sound a little scratchy, but I could still tell who it was.

"Nitori?" I asked, "Is that you?"

"Yes, it is. I've wired your room with an intercom using one of the gas vents. The doors are sound proofed in my sector, so nobody will here you."

"Why was I moved here?"

"I convinced Atsushi to switch you into my management sector. You're under my supervision."

"How are you talking to me?"

"It's called technology. It's something we picked up from humans. It's what makes everything we do here possible. The lights, the doors, the intercom, it's all technology. A lot of it was forbidden in Gensokyo because it was said to make the land 'impure'."

"Well… what happens to me now?" I asked.

"Unfortunately… the testing procedures are beyond my control. They have to keep experimenting with you."

My heart sank, thinking of going back to that room.

"On the bright side," she continued, "I can talk to you through the intercom."

"Why are you doing all of this, Nitori? Isn't this against the rules?"

"It is, but… I don't think you should have come down here. I only brought you here because you were in critical condition."

"You… brought me here?"

"I capture humans, remember?" she said with a sad tone.

"I'm not a human," I replied.

"You're not?"

"No. I'm a youkai."

"Then, why didn't you fight back? Or try to fly away?"

"I lost all my powers recently. I needed to get up the mountain because I heard about some gods that could help me."

"I… I'm sorry… You should have never been down here."

"I don't even know where I am." I said.

"You're in a research laboratory underground, next to the kappa hideout."

"Do… you know if there's a way out?"

"There is but… I can't tell you. You might expose what we've been doing down here."

"Nitori, all of this can't possibly be right. I have scars on my arms and legs," I said, beginning to raise my voice.

"I know but… I can't risk losing all of this technology. All of it's so important. We can't afford to lose any of it."

"You're torturing people down here!" I yelled.

"It's not me!" she retaliated, "I didn't want this to happen. But with what Atsushi's done, we can accomplish anything, and we owe him for it."

"Why are you doing this?"

The intercom fell silent for a few seconds. "Nitori?"

"I can't say just yet, test subject."

"I have a name…" I said sternly.

"Oh… sorry… what is it?"

"Hayato."

"Well, it's… nice to meet you, Hayato."

"I don't know if I can say the same, Nitori."

There was a small beep from the intercom.

"We'll have to talk later."

"Why?"

"It's time for the third phase…"

The intercom shut off, and the vents pumped in the white vapor. As far as I knew, I was on my way back to the operating room.

I woke up in the operating room as I expected, but when I looked at the window to my left, I could see Nitori through it.

"This is going to hurt, Hayato, but it's not as bad as your last operation."

A set of sharp tools descended from their racks, and began sparking on my strips. I yelled painfully as the process went on, but it only last 15 minutes. The tools ascended, and the large chamber-like device came back down. My mask knocked out my body once again, and my limbs were suspended by the beam. There were four chambers for each limb. The squeezed around, and gave me another electric shock. This time, it lasted only two minutes. The gases switched, allowing me to move again, and I looked at the strips. The metallic lines were gone, as if a cover was put over them, showing only the black strip and the blue panels. Lastly, a new set of devices came down. They were small block-like objects that emitted a purple light, and rotated around the operated areas. There wasn't any pain, but it took 30 minutes for them to finish. When they went back up, I saw the scars on my arms and legs had disappeared.

"Process complete," Nitori said through the intercom. The mask knocked me out once more. Waking up again in my stone cell, my arms and legs were still sore, but it was clear the scars were gone. "Are you awake, Hayato?" asked Nitori through the intercom.

I walked over to the speaker. "So, what did you do to me this time?"

"Your custom enhancement project was completed."

"What's that?"

The intercom paused for a moment. "I'll tell you what's going on, Hayato. When you initially arrived, you were put into the biological testing initiative put together by Atsushi. You were supposed to be tested for reactions to different drugs, which would have had adverse side effects on you. Seeing that you had fractured arms and legs, Atsushi changed his mind, and moved you to a more clandestine project. The soldier enhancement project."

"Soldier enhancement project? He's making an army?" I asked.

"I don't know what he's using them for, but he made the project to test new weapons that were made to be compatible only with those who had the proper components installed. The weapons come in a number of varieties. Atsushi decided to 'do you a favor', and chose to put you into the enhanced armor portion of the project."

"What did he do to my arms?"

"Your arms and legs were… reconfigured. To put it bluntly, he took out the fractured bones in your arms and legs, as well as the one in your hands and feet. He replaced them with a reinforced metal structure built to withstand extreme physical stress along with being electrically compatible to experimental weapons."

"So, I'm his guinea pig before he puts it on the rest of his soldiers?"

"Exactly. You're scheduled for the first weapons compatibility test tomorrow."

"What are they going to do?"

"It's not much. They're going to install the armor onto you, then analyze it to make sure everything works right."

"Armor? I thought you said they were weapons."

"You'll get what I'm saying tomorrow. In the mean time, I've also pulled a few more strings."

The intercom went silent, and a guard opened the door. He held a pair of handcuffs in one of his hands. They had a chain made of energy that held the two together.

"Come on," he said gruffly, "The supervisor wants to see you."

He threw me a pile of clothes and shoes, and I slipped them on. The outfit was all white, and there was nothing special about it. I walked through the sterile white halls, and saw that the guards were larger than average, being very tall and having large muscles. He took me into an elevator, and we ascended several levels. We ended on a floor full of other kappa. Many of them appeared to be researchers and officers, wearing white or red variants similar to Nitori's outfit. We walked through a series of halls before arriving at an opaque door with a description on it.

_A.W. Supervisor #3_

_Kawashiro, Nitori_

The guard pressed a button next to the door, and it slid open a few seconds later, Nitori standing behind it.

"I'll take it from here," she said, holding her hand for the chain. The guard handed it to her, and walked away. She motioned me to walk inside, and I did. The room was a white and blue office space with several monitors running along a wall. One said _Cell 101_, and I saw that it was my cell. She closed the door behind us, then pulled a card out of one of her pockets. She slid it through a slot on my cuffs, and the energy based line holding them together expanded slightly.

"Hayato," she said to me, "I've arranged for you to be my personal… assistant, basically."

"Assistant?" I asked her, raising an eyebrow.

"Every supervisor has the liberty of choosing one test subject to use for their own personal needs. Atsushi implemented this to give supervisors an extra hand without wasting kappa availability."

"So, what am I supposed to do?"

"You need to follow my ever command to the letter."

I stared at her blankly.

"Here's how it works. Being my assistant allows you to travel anywhere in non-restricted areas with me. But you can't act up. Every guard and supervisor is equipped with a remote that triggers any 'prison collar' as it's called," she said, pointing at the collar around my neck. "The collar gives an electrical shock to whoever it's attached to, and the remotes can increase or decrease the intensity of the shock."

"Nitori, why are you doing all of this for me?"

"Because, to be honest, I want all of this to stop."

"All of what to stop?"

"We can't talk about it now. It's too risky. Now we have to go." She swiped the same card through a small device on her wrist, and a small blue dome came and went. "Look at this," she said, pressing a button; the dome reappeared, surrounding us, and extending a few feet. "This is your safe zone. If you walk past this area, the collar will trigger on its own, so stay close. If I want you to go somewhere far, I have to attach an energy tether to you. Follow me."

She began walking out of the room, and I closely followed her. We entered an elevator, and descended a couple levels. It appeared to be a type of recreational floor, full of shops, restaurants, and tables. We walked over to a table next to a small Dai Shogi shop. Sitting at the table was a tengu dressed similarly to the one who attacked me at the valley. Her outfit was almost the same, save for the added black on her skirt, the white detached sleeves, and red Tokin. She had a larger sword, and a white shield with a red maple leaf on it; both of which were leaning on her chair as she played Shogi. Her hair was short and silver and her eyes were a bright red. Another kappa just left the table, looking somewhat frustrated. She must have lost to the tengu. As the tengu put away her Shogi board and pieces, we approached her.

"Hello, Momiji-san," Nitori greeted.

"Well, hello, Supervisor Kawashiro. Care to join me in a game of Shogi?" she asked.

"Hmm, maybe later. I'm planning on getting something to eat."

"That sounds like a good idea. Defeating my opponents always stirs up an appetite."

They both walked toward a nearby restaurant, and I followed. Sitting down at another table, they started a conversation.

"So, is this your new assistant, Supervisor? I've never seen one with such dark skin."

"Indeed, he is. This is his first day in service."

"Interesting. Looks like he's a subject in the armor projects," she said, looking at the black and blue strips of technology on my arms. "He looks like the one my squad took down a few weeks ago."

A few weeks ago? How long have I been down here?

"It's a possibility, but it doesn't matter," Nitori replied, "Hayato, get me a dish of food from that restaurant over there; they only serve one type of dish." Nitori activated the tether, and motioned me to go. I walked to the restaurant, and got a dish. When I looked at it, it was clearly made out of human, with a side of cucumber. I brought the dish back to her.

Momiji was gone, but came back a couple minutes later with a dish of similar composition. They began talking about their day, and plans for the future while I looked around. There was a multitude of tengu walking around as well as the kappa. It appeared that Atsushi made some type of deal with the tengu to guard his facility. Twenty minutes passed, then they finished their lunch, said their goodbyes, and we parted ways. We entered another elevator, and began descending.

"Who was that?" I asked.

"Momiji Inubashiri. She runs a squad that guards the Untrodden Valley near the Youkai Mountain. Her squad was the one that attacked you last month."

"I've been here for a month?"

"Yes. It's September 25th. You've been here since August 23rd."

That was a depressing fact. Everyone I knew must be wondering where I was. That is, if they still cared about me.


	8. Chapter 8: Gadgets n' Jailbreaks

Early the next morning, a couple guards entered my cell. They put cuffs on me and took me to a small white room, about the size of the operating room. My arms were tethered with beams, making them hang out from my body. My feet were locked to the floor with metal casings. The guards exited the room, and two panels opened next to the sources of the beams. On a set of metal holders, a pair of armored gauntlets came down. A second pair of beams took the gauntlets, and slipped them onto my arms. When they were in position, the gauntlets locked themselves onto my arms ,and I felt a small shock in my head. They were colored a dull grey, and had a yellow and black circle on the top and bottom. It was large enough to cover my entire arm, and the end of it extended to protect my elbows. The gauntlets had several holes designed in the arms, and inside it ended in a black durable material. The fingers were armored but offered flexibility.

Seconds later, the floor around my metal casings shifted, and the metal castings opened. I was lifted off the ground by the beams, and a matching pair of armored boots rose from the floor. I put my feet into the boots, and they locked the same way as the gauntlets, and gave the same shock to my head. They were colored the same way, and had the same holes designed into them. The boots also extended to cover my legs, and had an extra part covering my knees. The feet of the boots were armored a little thicker than the rest, and the outer half was hinged partially to allow my tows more movement. After they were in place, the floor shifted back, and the beams released me. The wall in front of me moved and opened up, revealing a larger room colored gray, with multiple lights at the high ceiling.

"Proceed forward," said a voice over the intercom. It sounded just like the one that talked to Nitori on my first day being conscious. I did what it said, and entered the larger room. It was completely empty, with only a few black out windows on all sides.

"Please raise your right arm forward," stated an automated voice. I did so, and it continued to the next dialogue. "To activate the O-520 Elemental Gauntlets, clench either your right or left fist for five seconds." I clenched my right fist, and the gauntlets let out a sudden burst of wind from the built-in holes. "To operate the O-520 Elemental Gauntlets, think of the desired effect, while gesturing the gauntlet to the desired direction. Note: The only available effects are element summoning, manipulation, and firing."

I decided to hold my fingers out, and think of shooting a burst of air. Amazingly, it did exactly as I thought it would, and shot out a burst of air from the finger tips. I then closed my fingers slightly, and began to manipulate the air around me. "Please note that the laws of physics still apply during manipulation," the voice noted. I guess this meant it would be hard to just suck the air out of one area. I then clenched my fists, and closed my eyes, thinking about "summoning" a gust of wind. I felt the wind blow, but didn't know if I summoned it, or just repeated manipulation.

"To deactivate your gauntlets, simply think about intentionally shutting them off, but this is not required at the moment. Note that thinking about shutting off the gauntlet differs from intending to shut them off."

I thought about "intending to shut them off," and they stopped emitting air from the holes. I decided to turn them back on since I probably wasn't done testing them.

The automated voice returned. "To use the O-520 Elemental Boots, the O-520 Elemental Gauntlets must be worn and active. The boots allow enhanced movement, as well as flight by use of any element. In addition, the boots give protection from potential damage resulting from long falls, and increase elemental regulation and allocation with the gauntlets. To utilize the boots' flight features, please use the same thought process as with the O-520 Elemental Gauntlets."

As before, I thought of flying, and the boots managed to lift me off the ground. In my excitement, I flew around the testing room at high speeds, before the voice prompted me to slow down. "To deactivate the flying feature of the boots, simply think about intentionally shutting off the flight feature."

I did so, and began falling to the floor. I landed hard on my feet, but didn't feel anything.

"Test 1 complete. Return to the preparation room immediately," said the male voice fro earlier.

I walked back into the room, and the beams tethered me once again, and the metal holders took my gauntlets and boots off. After that, the guards came back in and took me back to my cell.

It seemed my favorite pastime lately was to think. After all, it's not like I could do much else. I began to wonder what Nitori was up to. She didn't seem to enjoy what her boss was doing down here, but if that's true, why is she telling me about it? I lifted the cover of my mattress, and looked at the chip she gave me. She never told me what it was for. A couple more days past before the hidden intercom turned on.

"Hayato," Nitori said quietly.

"What is it?" I asked.

"How did your weapons test go?"

"It worked fine I guess. Why?"

"Really? The gauntlets worked for you?"

"Yeah… What's so important about them?"

The intercom fell silent for a couple minutes again, then she came back. "Okay, Hayato. I need to ask you something."

"Okay?"

"Do you trust me?"

"I don't know, Nitori…" I said.

"_Can_ you trust me?"

I gave my answer a little thought. "I might, if you can give me a reason to."

"Then get ready," she said quickly.

The intercom shut off again, and a couple minutes later, an explosion shook the facility, and alarms began to scream. The lights in the hall turned red, and the guards outside began to run in one direction. Another second passed, and the lights completely shut off; I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, and the alarms fell silent.

As I looked around blindly, I spotted a pair of glowing green eyes in front of me. They approached me, and I felt something poke my right arm. I began to get dizzy, and before I knew it, I felt my back being dragged across the floor of the hall. Even though it was pitch black, I could still tell I was about to fall asleep, and I did.

Waking up on a cold floor of rough stone, I looked around and found myself in a type of cave-like room with a couple lights. I rubbed my eyes, trying to shrug off the dizziness, and saw several blurry blue and white figures standing around me. A blue figure approached me, and stuck a needle in my arm, causing me to regain clear vision. I looked around again, and saw Nitori in front of me. We were surrounded by a group composed of several kappa, a few tengu, and what appeared to be some other test subjects, each with black and blue strips on different parts of their body.

"Nitori?" I asked in confusion, "Where am I?"

"I'm going to ask you again, Hayato. Can you trust me?"

"I can—as soon as you tell me where I am," I replied.

"What you're looking at is an abandoned part of the facility. It has no cameras, and none of Atsushi's guards come here. This is the hideout for the Kawashiro Resistance."

"The what?"

"The Kawashiro Resistance is a group that I assembled out of several kappa and tengu who don't want to follow Atsushi's leadership. We also include test subjects that we assume can be trusted. Which is why you're here," she explained.

"You want me to join you?" I asked.

"At least we're considering it," said a voice in the back. I looked over and saw that it was Momiji. "We still need to make sure you're trustworthy."

"And you have a potential of great value to the Resistance, Hayato. We were never able to get a youkai to test the Elemental Gauntlets," Nitori said.

"Why not?" I asked out of curiosity.

"Atsushi insisted that testing was to be used strictly on humans to reduce the amount of risk to youkai. While humans were able to pass some of the tests regarding weapons and armor, none were able to make the O-520's work. They either couldn't activate it, or died when the gauntlets' cerebral interface connected with their brain."

"That's terrible," I said.

"And each of us agrees with you, Hayato. That's why we're all here," Nitori replied.

"But now we need to know just how reliable you are," Momiji added.

"How?" I asked.

"We can't have rebels that are too scared to do anything. At the same time, we can't have anyone getting too excited. We need people who can get the job done to the letter. And one who isn't going to lie to us."

"I can do what needs to be done," I told her.

"So, you say you're a youkai. How'd you get caught so easily then? You barely put up a fight."

"Before I came to the mountain, I lost my powers trying to help someone. After trying to get some help, I was told that the gods on the youkai could assist me. That's why I came to the mountain in the first place."

"Why were your arms and legs fractured?" asked Nitori.

"I did something that I shouldn't have… it was something I couldn't control… I end up hurting a lot of people. After that, I lost my powers, and when I tried to make up for it, I ended up nearly killing myself."

"So, how can we trust you if you can't control yourself?" asked Momiji with a slightly condescending tone.

"Because I'm determined to make sure it never happens again, and besides. The accident had to do with my powers, which I can't use now."

"Let's give him a chance," Nitori said, "We need every pair of hands we can get at this point."

"Nitori, they'll fix the generators any minute now," said a kappa in the background.

"Alright. Everyone back to your posts. Get the test subjects back to their cells before the power comes on," Nitori announced. Everyone began moving around, and Nitori reached into her pocket. She pulled out another syringe and stuck it into my arm, which knocked me out.

I woke up back in my cell; everything seemed to be back to normal. I didn't hear Nitori on the intercom for a while, and I had no idea what was going to happen next. Occasionally, the guards took me to test the Gauntlets for a few days. I had finally realized that the entire time I had been here, I hadn't eaten a single thing. It was a miracle that I was alive let alone not hungry. I made it a point to ask Nitori when I got the chance. However, homesickness was starting to kick in, and all I could think about going was home. I didn't want to be a part of this anymore. I just wanted to live back at the Palace as a powerless youkai.

Six days after encountering the Resistance, Nitori opened the door to my cell, and put a pair of extended cuffs that were linked to her safe zone. She walked out, and I followed her into the elevator.

"What are we doing?" I asked.

"Running a few errands," She told me.

"Okay? By the way, I haven't eaten anything since I've gotten here. How am I still alive?"

"That was a secondary operation that I signed you up for. Your body has been slightly constructed to be able to recycle used material into nutrients that your body can absorb. You can go weeks without food. A side effect is that once every couple months the devices used in your body need to clean themselves out, which kind of hurts," she answered.

The elevator door opened, and we ended up on a quiet floor with virtually no one in it. Nitori took out a small device, and pointed it at a nearby camera. The device emitted a small blue beam that went into the camera. There was a small spark that traveled through the rest of cameras, and Nitori kept walking.

"What did you do?" I asked quietly.

"Camera systems are operated by a single terminal on every floor. I glitched the cameras so that they display a certain image of what they were looking at a few minutes ago. So, they can't see us even though they're still operating."

I looked around in the hall. All I saw was a series of closed doors and a few empty labs with windows. I continued to follow Nitori to a larger door. Nitori swiped her card, and it slid open. We walked into what appeared to be a massive vault. She walked to the computer at the center, and activated an extended path that went to one of the several containers lining the walls.

"Stay here," Nitori said, and activated the tether so that she could get some distance. She walked out to the container, and seemed to pass through an invisible field as she did. It must have been some type of sensor. She pulled the container open, and held up a few pieces of paper. She then took a camera out of one of her pockets, and snapped photos of each piece. She put the original papers back into the container, and walked back. She took off her backpack and connected the camera to a small cord that ran into it. A couple seconds later, she pulled out a few photos of the papers she copied, and gave them to me.

"What are they?" I inquired.

"Maps of key floors in the facility. Hide them in your cell, and study them as much as possible. Let's go."

We walked back to the elevator, and went to a floor that had a single hall branching off into other halls that lead to dead ends. Nitori walked into one of the branching halls and stopped at a panel near the end. She swiped her card through the lock and opened it, which revealed a thicker set of papers. She took pictures of them, put them back, and gave the copies to me.

"These are the schematics and a basic manual for the O-520 Elemental Armor Set: the Gauntlets and Boots you've been testing. Study them just like the maps."

"Is all of this even necessary?" I asked with a face of doubt.

"Of course. If you stand a chance of escaping, you need to know the ins and outs of this place like the back of your hand. And you need to know how to use your gauntlets."

"_My_ gauntlets?"

"You were the first and only person to get the gauntlets to work, so when we escape, that's what you're going to use."

"When are we getting out of here?" I asked, eager for an answer.

"When everything's put into place; if just one thing is off, it could compromise everything we've been planning."

"Planning?"

Before she could answer, we could hear footsteps through the hall. I looked at Nitori, who motioned me to stay quiet. She slipped the papers back in and closed the panel, then she pressed a button on the device attached to her wrist, and a distorted wave passed over us. A guard walked into the hall we were in, and made his way to us. He stopped a few feet away from the field, and walked away. When we couldn't hear him anymore, we walked back the elevator. Once we were inside, Nitori deactivated the field.

"That was my camouflage suit," she started before I could ask, "I use it to get out of tight situations."

She lead me back to my cell and took off the cuffs. "Remember what I told you."

After she closed the door, I looked at the photos that were barely hidden in my shirt. I was surprised that none of the guards noticed the small lump sticking out when I walked by. There almost enough papers to fill a small book. Since I didn't know what was going to happen next, I stuffed most of the photos beneath my mattress, and began studying the manual first.


	9. Chapter 9: Resistance

I continued to study the maps and schematics for a couple days, only being interrupted by scheduled weapons testing on the gauntlets. I was starting to get used to the armor, and began developing skills with them. It wasn't long before I learned to throw punches enhanced with bursts of air, and how avoid projectiles by using the air to move them. When combat became part of the testing, I was impressed by the power I had in a single punch or kick, and got used to flying and dodging around the testing chamber.

An hour after my latest test run, I heard what sounded like the breaking of rock in the back of my cell. I looked over, and saw part of the wall collapse. When the dust cleared, I saw a kappa with goggles and a pick. He motioned me to follow him into the tunnel, which I did. I followed the light he had on his helmet, and the trip took about ten minutes to get there. We ended up in a small tunnel, and he kept walking forward. As I followed him, I noticed a series of other tunnels similar to mine, and they all went in the same direction, which was towards the cells. A couple minutes later, I was in the large lit cave of the Resistance. Kappa and tengu were talking to each other about rumors and plans.

"Good, you made it," said a voice behind me.

I turned around, and saw Nitori. "What's with the tunnel to my cell?"

"Every test subject under my supervision eventually gets tunnel access to the hideout once they've received clearance as a trusted member."

"I'm a trusted member?"

"Most of the others don't think so just yet because you're new, but you've already proven yourself capable of following directions. And besides, I needed to make sure you knew how to get here without us having to cause a power outage."

"Wait a second," I said quickly, "What about the guards? They're going to see the hole when they take me for testing."

"The Resistance is bigger than you think, Hayato."

"How long is it going to take before we finally get out of here?" I asked impatiently.

"Hang in there, Hayato. The main goal right now is to make sure everyone's ready to do their part. Even you. If we want to take control of the facility, we need to hit Atsushi fast and hard."

"Wait, what do you mean by take control? I thought we were trying to escape."

"What you and the test subjects want to do is up to you, Hayato. But as for the tengu and kappa, we're staying here."

"You can't seriously be continuing what he's doing here!" I shouted.

"We aren't!" She retaliated, "Hayato, the kappa live on technology and engineering. We want to use it to help people. Improve their lives. Technology is the implementation of magic by means of using physical material. We can do things with it that spells can't. But first we need to stop Atsushi's biological and military experiments."

"Alright… I guess I understand…" I replied reluctantly.

"Now, to take care of business. See those doors over there?"

I nodded.

"Go through them, and take a left at the second hall, and find Momiji. She's waiting to tutor you on combat."

"But I already know how to fight," I told her.

"You know how to fight in an open area, but you need to know how to fight in a crowded hall without hurting an ally."

"How do I hurt an ally?"

"Bullets are tricky sometimes," she said monotonously.

I shrugged, and went towards the doors. What did she mean by bullets were tricky? Unless she meant danmaku, which was hard to dodge. I went through, and saw that the halls were designed similarly to the new facility, except these floors were a little more metallic and old. I went into the second hall on the left, and went through the door it lead to.

As I entered, I saw a long room blocked by several small booths. The room appeared to be a range similar to what was used in firing arrows. I suddenly heard loud popping sounds that pierced my ears. I covered them and looked around for the source. I saw a white furry tail sticking out of one of the booths, and walked towards it. I looked into the booth, and saw that it was Momiji. She turned around and looked at me. In her hand was a metallic L-shaped object with a small lever.

"Ah, Nitori told me you were coming here." She stared at me for a couple seconds blankly, then snapped out of it. "Oh, sorry. We haven't formally met, have we? I am Momiji Inubashiri. What's your name?"

"Hayato," I said, staring at her.

"It's nice to meet you. Look uh, I don't know if Nitori already told you this but, my squad was the one that kinda took you down… I just wanted to apologize to you about that before we start…"

"Oh, uh, it's alright," I said, still dumbstruck.

"Alright? No, it isn't. I was the one that trapped you down here. You should be mad at me," she remarked with slight confusion.

"Oh, you don't have to worry about it. It's alright, really."

"But… why?"

"Well, if I want to get out of here, I might as well get out with some friends. And besides, you were just doing your job."

"You sound unnaturally nice. Heh… I never thought someone I captured would even talk to me. None of the others ever do…"Her wolf ears drooped to the sides.

I looked at her as she looked at the floor. I wasn't exactly sure what to say, but eventually, she looked back up.

"Anyways, I'm supposed to help train you for combat. I assume you've never heard of a gun."

I shook my head.

"Guns are weapons. It's no surprise you've never seen one. They were made by humans when they want to kill each other. And I gotta hand it to them, they do a pretty a good job figuring out ways to do it. Watch."

Momiji took out a small metal bar from the bottom of the gun, and slipped on back into it. I saw that the second one had some bright metallic pieces on the top that the first one didn't have. She loaded it in, then pointed the end of it at a target in the range. She pulled the trigger, and it let out the loud pop I heard earlier. She used it fifteen times before she stopped. When she finished, she pressed a button next to her booth, and the target moved to the front.

"Take a look," she said, pointing at the target. It was filled with several holes at the center. It was amazing considering I didn't even see anything hit it in the first place. "Gun bullets travel _much_ faster than danmaku, and they have no color to indicate where they are. And it doesn't matter whether a youkai who can resist physical attacks or not. One of these things flying into you is going to hurt; especially if the ammo is designed specifically for youkai."

"Ammo?" I asked. At the time, I had no knowledge of guns at all.

"Ammunition, ammo for short, is what you put into a gun for it to do what you want. Look at this." She showed me a box full of nine millimeter bullets. "Every gun needs a certain type of bullet, and they need to be loaded a certain way, and you need to keep refilling them because each bullet only works once. It's important that you know how to use a gun as well as loading it up. Give it a try."

She loaded it with another magazine, and handed it to me. She pressed a button, and the old target disappeared, and a new one appeared in the original position. I fired a shot, and got startled by the gun's recoil. I proceeded to firing the rest of the bullets, and fired another 14 times before I emptied the magazine. Momiji pressed the button, and the target came forward. Looking at it, the majority of the marks were scattered on the outer ring; not one managed to hit the center. I looked down, feeling a little embarrassed.

"Hey, don't feel bad about it," Momiji said, putting her hand on my shoulder, "Most people can't even hit the target on their first try. You just need to practice aiming. Here, give me your hand."

She took my hand and positioned it on the handle. "Make sure to grip it tight. Put your bottom three fingers here. Now put your second hand here."

"Like this?"

"Almost. Just position your palm right there. Perfect. Just like that. Now give it another shot."

I got a new target, and fired another fifteen shots. My hands were starting to get sore from the recoil. I looked at the target, and saw that my shots were slightly closer to the center.

"Not bad for a second try," Momiji stated, "But let's see how you do with a moving target."

She pressed a second button, and a new target started moving side to side on rails. I followed the target with the sight, aiming just a little in front of where it was going. I emptied the magazine, and took a look at the target. It yielded less spectacular results—only a couple bullets hitting outside the last ring.

"Well, I gotta give you some credit. It looked like you actually knew where to aim. And you hit it at least once, which is still more than I can say for most people even a couple days in training."

"Is all of this necessary?"

"Do you think Atsushi's going to take us seriously if we just knock out a few of his guards? Not to mention they got weapons just like these. Maybe better ones." She had a point. "Well, that's your first time firing a gun. How'd it feel?"

"It felt… unnatural."

"I feel the same way. I prefer hacking and slashing; you feel like that?"

I nodded.

"Okay. We'll take a break from the guns for a bit. Follow me."

She took me to a room close by; it appeared to be a type of small gymnasium, but it was obviously for fighting. Momiji walked over to a pair of large wooden doors, and opened them to show a massive rack of close-combat weapons. Katanas, spears, shields, maces, and a whole range of Okinawan weapons: it was a sight to behold.

"Take your pick," she said, motioning to the rack.

I walked up to the wall of weapons, and looking around, I found a naginata similar to the one that I used to summon. I picked it up, and swung it around me. It was only slightly heavier than the one I had. As I turned around to Momiji, I discovered that she had unsheathed the large scimitar-like sword she had holstered on her back. In her left hand was also her shield, and she was in a battle stance.

"Well, since we prefer getting up close and personal, how about we do just that?" she insisted.

"Ladies first," I commented.

Momiji ran towards me at standard speed, but considering she was wearing tengu getas, I was impressed. She swung down at me, and I blocked her with the pole of my naginata. Her strength was incredible, and since I had no youkai power to back me up, it was a fight purely about skill. I pushed her back and retaliated with a jab with my naginata, but she blocked it with her shield. Immediately sliding it to the side, she came at me, already past the end of my naginata. She gave a side-swing towards me, and I had to bend backwards to dodge it. Time practically slowed down when I saw the blade only centimeters away from my face.

I quickly rebalanced myself, and stepped to the side as she tried to make a stab at me. She jumped over my following my side swing and kicked me in the face with the bottom of her geta. I backed up, and blocked her incoming attack, with my blade pointed downward. I pulled back, and pushed my naginata up, nearly forcing her sword from her hand. Before I could bring my naginata back down, however, she delivered another kick to my chest. I held onto it for a second,and then ducked under one of her side swings. I quickly came back up and punched her clean in the stomach out of reflex, knocking the air right out of her. She kneeled on the ground and started coughing. For a second I thought of trying to help her up, but that would have been an opening if she was faking. I pointed my naginata at her as she looked up, claiming my victory. I was sure she was going to chew me out for punching her, but to my surprise, she didn't.

"Ha… I never met a guy who punches a female opponent without hesitation. I was sure you were going to try to help me when I started to pretend coughing," she said, "regaining" her breath, "It looks like you know your pole arm combat."

"It's a gift," I said with pride.

"But what if you didn't have one?" she added.

"Huh?"

She took my naginata out of my hands, put it back on the rack, and threw a katana at me. I just barely caught it without cutting myself. I had practiced sword fighting before, but I was nowhere near as good as Momiji was.

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna duel you if you aren't ready," she warranted.

I sighed with relief.

"So, show me how you approach a girl like me," she said with a bit of humor.

I decided to try nothing fancy, and approach her with a fast pace. When I got to her, I made a quick swing that she quickly dodged. Before I knew it, she got behind me and pinned me to the ground.

"Well, you would have been dead," she admitted, "But that's why you're here."

She got off me and offered to help me up; an offer I accepted.

"There's not really any mystical phrase or anything that you need to know to be good at sword fighting, Hayato. You just need to be quick and know what's coming. Try it again."

I gave another swing, scrutinizing what she was going to do. She blocked my katana, shifted her sword causing it to slide forward, and she grabbed me by the collar of my shirt. We repeated the process a few times before I got the hang of things. After a few more attempts, I swung at her again. She moved to the side, preparing to move behind me. I spotted her, and immediately turned around, elbowing her on the ribs

"Good retaliation," she said, rubbing her side, "I think that's enough for now. You're a quick learner. You'll get better with practice."

"Well uh… Mind showing me around the hideout?" I asked, trying to change the subject.

"Not at all. Follow me."

Momiji gave me a tour of everything that wasn't off-limits. She showed me everything from the old weapons and munitions factory to where the bathrooms were. The hideout contained several things including its own oxygen, water, and food resources. There was also an abandoned recreational center that was slightly similar to the one in the new facility. It had been refurbished by the Resistance, and put back into working order. A few old research labs and offices were also used in the hideout.

After Momiji finished giving me the tour, we sat down at a table in the recreational center. We both got some food from a nearby kitchen; It was the first time I managed to actually eat since I entered the facility. I ate it as fast as I could while Momiji watched my embarrassing display of consumption. Eventually we just sat there and talked to each other.

"So, why did you join the Resistance?" I asked her.

She seemed to tense up, then gave a brief sigh. "I just… didn't want to keep doing it. All I did was trap humans in this underground cage to be tested on or just plain killed. Sure, they were just humans, but nobody deserves the kind of torture that goes on down here, nobody but Atsushi. I never wanted to be a part of it in the first place. But the chief tengu, Tenma made a deal with Atsushi. The tengu guarded Atsushi's labs, and the tengu received a high status when Atsushi began his attack on Gensokyo. That's what this is all about. The experiments, the weapons, everything. If we let him complete his army, he'll kill anyone who gets in his way. And I can tell, Atsushi's going to betray us all when he gets what he wants. I couldn't… live with that. You know, it sounds tacky but, I really would rather die fighting him than be on his side."

"Momiji…" I felt a little guilty asking her such a personal question. "I'm sorry if I…"

"Don't worry about it," she interrupted, "it's not your fault. I just want Atsushi gone so bad… it stresses me out. But Nitori's a good friend. I can always count on her when I need someone to talk to. She's straight forward about everything. And I have no idea what you're like, but you seem like a trust worthy person."

She smiled at me, and I smiled back at her before a beeping sound came from the small device on her wrist, which looked identical to the one Nitori had.

"What is it?" Momiji asked on the device.

"Tell Hayato to go back to his cell. Preparations for his last test are scheduled to start soon."

Momiji had a darkly serious look on her face when she heard what Nitori said. "Already? Why so fast?"

"Atsushi's planning to implement training with the gauntlets to his soldiers," Nitori replied.

"Alright… I'll tell him. Just make sure you don't get there too late." Momiji looked back up at me sternly. "You need to get back to your cell, Hayato."

"What for?" I asked, having not heard all of what Nitori said.

"Your last test is today. And that isn't good. A last test for a subject means they aren't needed anymore."

"What happens to them?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"To put it simply, they're disposed of one way or another. Incineration, compression, cooking, either way, you'll be dead if we don't get you out before Atsushi pulls the plug."

I must have looked rather mortified, because Momiji asked me if I was alright.

"What's going to happen to me?" I asked, snapping out of my trance, "You let me in here just to watch me die?"

"Of course not. We're going to get you out before it's too late. What's odd about you is that you made it to the final test much too fast. But no time to think about it. Get back to your cell."

"But…"

"Do you trust us, Hayato?" Momiji asked with a serious face.

"Y-…Yes."

"Then at least trust us enough to help you."

I got up from my chair and made my way back to the cell. I hoped that I really could trust the Resistance.


	10. Chapter 10: Test Flight

I woke abruptly to the light that suddenly came from the open door. A couple guards were standing to take me to the testing chamber as usual. I got up, and glanced at the uncovered hole behind me, but the guards didn't seem to notice. They took me to the preparation room to slip the armor on me. After I was equipped, the door leading to the test chamber opened up. I walked in, and the preparation room closed behind me.

"Begin test 23," announced the familiar male voice over the intercom.

A set of turrets rose from the floor; they were made to shoot rubber bullets at me which I had to either dodge or block. The turrets turned to target me, and began firing, but unfortunately they seemed to have a modification that I didn't enjoy. Considering how they made loud pops rather than releasing air, the turrets were apparently shooting real bullets instead of rubber ones. I used my boots to dodge out of the way as I routinely did. Knowing what my gauntlets were capable of, I shot several bursts of concentrated air that blew the turrets apart.

Another door quickly opened and released a set of robotic sentries that were made to shoot the same bullets as the turrets. I protected my face with the arms of the gauntlets and dove for cover behind a raised wall, and I felt a burning sensation on my shoulder. I looked over and saw that a bullet had just barely grazed it. My life was at risk within what I thought was a somewhat safe haven. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath for a second to calm my nerves. As the sound of metallic feet started to get louder, I jumped from behind the wall and into plain sight. As the sentries aimed at me, I launched a powerful gust of wind to send the bullets off course.

However, metal bullets seemed to be much heavier than the rubber ones, and I only succeeded in blowing them slightly off course. Being grazed by several, and taking direct hits in my upper leg and side, I ducked for cover behind another wall. As a sentry came around, I jumped onto it and delivered several punches into its "face". I looked closer, and saw that one of the guns attached was simply screwed on. I tore it off and put my finger on the trigger.

The rest of the sentries approached the other side of the wall, and out of reflex, I began firing in the general area. The bullets came out at fast rate—different to the pistol I tried at the range—and filled them with multiple holes.

"Test 23 cancelled," announced an automated voice on the intercom. The walls retracted back to the floor, and the preparation room opened. I limped to the suspension beams, throwing my gun onto the floor. Once I was lifted off the floor, the beams changed color, and a couple of thin clamps came down. They reached into the wounds where I was shot, and pulled the bullets out; it stung, but I assumed the pain was reduced by the beams. My remaining wounds were also patched up automatically.

The guards came back in, but instead of taking me back to my cell, they turned in another direction to a ramp. We walked up, taking a couple turns at walls, and ended up at a door. The opened it, and it appeared to be one of the rooms overlooking the test chamber. Inside it, I saw a man sitting in one of the chairs next to the observation window. He turned around as I walked inside, and motioned for the guards to leave. After the guards left, he stood up from his chair. He was slightly taller than I was, and in reality looked less like a man and more like an eighteen year old boy.

"Well hello there, test subject," he said, holding his hands behind his back, "you're quite a special one, aren't you? You're the only human to get these absurd gauntlets to work. But, you don't seem to actually be human, do you?"

I looked at him with curiosity. "How can you tell?"

"A supervisor of mine claims that you are a youkai. She's theorizing that that is the reason for your sterling success with the gauntlets. And though I think many of her ideas are far-fetched, she's seldom let me down."

"So, what about it?" I asked with agitation.

He let out s small chuckle. "Well, if what she says is true, then you might actually be worth more than turning into tomorrow night's entre."

I kept silent, assuming he was going to explain what he meant.

"You see, finding new officers to hire can be difficult at times. Either these tengu are too incompetent to take orders or they're too ambitious to act smart. It's a difficult prospect."

I raised an eyebrow. "Your point?"

"Ah, yes. Well, if you are examined and the results prove you are a youkai, I will offer you the privilege of serving under my authority. So, will you choose to continue with the examination?"

I thought about his offer. What was he thinking? He was willing to make someone he tortured one of his officers? That's like asking your worst enemy to bake you a cake. But then I started to think of how it was going to benefit me.

"What else comes with the deal?" I asked.

"The typical officer's authority, and the added living arrangements and accommodations of course. And, if you agree to continue testing the gauntlets, I will allow you the work location of your choice. Keep in mind though, that I'm not foolish enough to promote you to a high end position so fast. You will have to start off as a lieutenant on a probationary period, and then work your way up from there."

It sounded like a solid offer. And if I became an officer, I could move around the facility with more ease. It could make escaping much easier. "Fine," I told him, "I'll take the deal."

He pressed a nearby button, and the guards returned into the room. "Take mister…. My my, what _is_ your name?

"Hayato."

"Take Mister Hayato to the analysis chamber."

I was taken to a small room with a large tube-like machine in the middle. I was required to take off everything save for my undergarments and step into the machine. While I was lying down, a series of lasers passed over my body and head. It took about an hour for the entire process to complete. After I got out and put my clothes back on, they rambled about a formality in the facility that required stating my recorded information by an official who was there.

The official started talking. "Okay… Last name, unknown. First name, Hayato. Age, 160. Height, 5',11". Weight Type, Fluctuant. Eye color, brown. Skin color, dark. Hair color, black. Beginning rank of employment, Lieutenant. Area of supervision, to be determined. Congratulations, 'Lieutenant Hayato', you've been enlisted into the staff of Tsutomu Laboratories. Please confirm with President Tsutomu of your new position. There, now get out. I have a lot of work to do."

After that waste of time, the guards took me back to Atsushi to confirm my position.

"Well well," he said, looking at the printed results, "It seems you truly are a youkai. Then I shall make you an offer. If you swear your allegiance to me, I will validate your new position and keep you alive. And as I have said before, if you agree to continue testing the O-520's I shall allow you to choose your working environment."

His offer still sounded too good to be real, but my options were either _take the deal and risk a trap_ or _get out of the facility in a body bag._ "Alright, 'sir'. You have a deal."

"Please, call me President Atsushi," he said, shaking my hand. He motioned to the guards, and they finally took off my cuffs.

I looked at my test subject attire, then back at him. "By the way, you haven't seen my kimono have you? I've kind of had it for a while."

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry Lieutenant, but outside clothes are ordered to be incinerated immediately."

That was some depressing news. I had that kimono since I lived in the Palace. "Well, do you know…"

"Where you could find some new clothes? Yes. The guards will show you to your new suite and then give you a catalogue of officer attire. And one more thing, you agreed to test the gauntlets, yes?"

I nodded.

"Well, I shall allow you to work in the area of your choosing: weaponry, supervision, biological, you name it. Tell me when you—

"The armor testing subjects. I want to supervise that area."

"I see," He said, squinting his eyes. I stiffened a little when he did.

"You want to specialize in armor testing in general, so you want to supervise the test subjects and study them. Fine then. I'll notify Supervisor Kawashiro about your arrival. And you may want to thank her for theorizing about your competence."

If I had any doubt in the Resistance, I didn't anymore. Nitori's saved my skin at least twice, and probably more. I certainly owed her for what she's done for me.

The guards lead me to a residential area that looked similar to Nitori's area. They opened the door for me, and I looked in at a suite that also looked similar to hers, give or take few differences. After walking in, a guard tapped my shoulder. He reached into his pocket, and pulled some of the photos I hid under my mattress. The other guard came in, holding the rest of the stack, and a catalogue about officer clothes. They left the room, and I was a bit confused to what happened. Then I remembered what Nitori said. _"The Resistance is bigger than you think, Hayato."_

I started to wonder just how big the Resistance really was, but I had other things to take care of. I opened the catalogue, and looked at the pictures of officer uniforms. Almost all of them were based off outside world clothing. I didn't like most of them, and had to settle with a uniform consisting of a white shirt, black pants and shoes, and a gray hooded overcoat. According to the pamphlet, it was categorized as "modern" attire, whatever that meant.

Seeing that the catalogue could place automatic electronic orders, I selected the outfit, and it stated that it would arrive at my suite within five minutes before stating that I would have to buy other clothes in the catalogue, which I planned to never do. As the catalogue stated, my outfit was at my suite in five minutes. I slipped it all on and looked in the mirror. I still preferred my old kimono. On my left should, however, I saw that the patch with the black zigzag symbol was there. I finally concluded this was Atsushi's symbol.

I went back to thinking of why Atsushi gave me this position in the first place. It was unnatural to just give a test subject a position of any importance even if he had something unique, at least in my opinion. Then again, guns felt unnatural. But he didn't even give me any training. Nitori could probably answer all of my questions. Obviously, I couldn't talk to her up here.

I navigated my way out from residential to the floor her office was on. I found it after a bit of looking, and knocked on the door. The door slid open, and she motioned for me to come in.

"You're welcome," she remarked with a grin.

"Thanks, Nitori. But, how did you do it?"

She sighed, and sat down on the chair at her desk. "It wasn't easy. I can only keep doing this so many times before Atsushi starts catching on. I had to tell him that you were a youkai, and that having you around was better than killing you. He didn't budge at first, but after explaining how your being a youkai was the only plausible reason the gauntlets worked in the first place, he made the decision to have you analyzed."

I took a seat on a nearby chair. "But all of it seemed too easy on my part. Don't officers need some type of training before they start?"

"They do. But I volunteered to tutor you personally, so that I could both keep an eye on you and help you blend in."

"Keep an eye on me?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"One bad move could uproot the entire Resistance prematurely. If that happens, we might not stand a chance of getting out of here alive, and more importantly, taking this place under our control."

"But… why was Atsushi so quick to accept me?"

She sighed again. "Atsushi isn't as intelligent as he likes to think. There's always a possibility it could be a trap, but I'd wager on him being completely oblivious—not to mention, arrogant—before thinking it's a trap."

I replied with my own sigh. "How much longer is this going to take, Nitori?"

She gave me a stern look. "You need to be patient, Hayato. We're putting together the last pieces of the operation. You just need to hang on a little longer."

I looked down with an obvious expression of sadness.

"Hey, cheer up," she said, smiling at me, "the others are going to wonder why a new officer with so many luxuries is looking miserable."

I looked back up at her, trying to form a smile. "Well, what do I do now?"

"Well, now that you're a Lieutenant, you still have just about as much free time as a test subject. We usually only call on lieutenants for an extra hand, and because you're being tutored by me rather than taking a class, you don't have much a schedule. So the important thing for you to do is keep studying the schematics."

"Well, I guess it's better than doing nothing… wait, how am I going to get back to the hideout?"

"Officers' suites come with a one-person facility teleportation platform that will transport you to predetermined locations. The tech specialists in the Resistance should be adding the location to the hideout's platform into yours right about now. It'll be labeled 'garden center'."

"Why that?"

"Because nobody ever checks the locations on the platforms, but it's labeled that way just in case."

"Okay… Anyways, how long _is_ this going to take?"

"A few more weeks."

Well, it wasn't a couple years, but that didn't stop me from looking sad again.

"You want to know something?" she said, trying to cheer me up again.

"What?" I asked in a low tone.

"I know somebody who has a crush on you."

I jumped out of my seat. "What?!"

"Ha! I knew that would wake you up!" she said, giggling.

"Wait! Were you being serious or not?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't know, that's why I'm asking you!"

"Hahaha! Just go study, would you?"

I left her room, and looked at her suspiciously as I did. Whether it was true or not, I guess it wasn't time to think about it at the moment. I returned to my suite to study the photos, but not before taking a good, long nap on my bed.


	11. Chapter 11: Side Track

[You:I don't even know what's going on anymore.

Me: Neither did I]

For the next month or so, all I did was study the facility's schematics and the gauntlet's detailed manual. I kept close to Nitori so that she could teach me the basics of being an officer, and over time, we started becoming friends. Unfortunately, I only saw Momiji a couple times, but I went down to the hideout to practice gun shooting when I got the chance. Within a few weeks, I was promoted to Captain, though it only gave me access to places I didn't need, and a slight pay raise. My testing of the gauntlets continued, and I became fluent in using its features.

A few weeks later, I had studied the schematics enough to be able to walk through the areas blindfolded. Nitori kept me updated on parts of the plans. She was supposed to begin by hacking the facility's intercoms, and speaking to the staff to try to get some last minute help, as well as cueing the lower branches of the Resistance. In the mean time, a team of engineers were going to rig the facility's generators with explosives for when it was time to break out the test subjects. After that, another team was going to break into the armory and stock up on extra weapons and ammunition. Momiji was going to wait in the recreational center with her group of tengu to take out the guards and other resistance when the generators were destroyed. I was assigned with breaking into the prototype storage room, and getting my gauntlets along with a few other items. After several other groups escorted fleeing test subjects and cleared a way out for us, we were going to head back inside to confront Atsushi personally and take control of the facility.

Of course, we had to worry about unscheduled changes in the plan, but Nitori said to worry about it when it happens. But before the plan was ready, there was one more component that we needed, which was the hardest one to obtain: patience. We had to execute everything in perfect succession, or risk attracting unwanted attention prematurely. I finally had a date of when the plan was going to begin, which was in two days. During that time, we had to be on top of our guard to make sure nobody did anything to uproot the Resistance. However, a rumor was spreading that a traitor was going to try to warn Atsushi about our plan. All of us were on our toes, watching each other closely, especially me, since I was nearly the newest member.

I skimmed over the schematics a couple more times before heading to the hideout to practice shooting. I had gotten better with my aim, though I still wasn't perfect. However, at least I had the brains to fire with only one pistol; every now and then, a kappa would get the idea of shooting two pistols at once. Whenever they tried it, they missed almost all of their shots on a still target.

As I fired with a rifle, someone tapped my shoulder behind me. I turned around, and saw that it was Momiji holding an over-sized hand gun.

"What the heck is that thing?" I asked her, switching on the rifle's safety.

"What does it look like? It's a really big pistol," she said with a grin.

I raised my eyebrow. "Well, why is it so big?"

"It's for you. Do you think you can fire a pistol with those gauntlets on?"

"Well, they aren't that big."

"But, the fingers are still larger, aren't they?"

I gave it some thought for a second. They were. "So this is for when I shoot with my gauntlets on?"

"Mhmm. Nitori said that you were using gauntlet armor, so I came up with this, so that you don't have to worry so much about it."

"What's it fire?"

"Same bullets as a regular, it just holds twice as much."

She handed the pistol to me, and I traded it for my rifle. "Thanks," I told her, "Where have you been, by the way?"

"Patrolling the surface, mostly. It's been pretty quiet though, so we usually just sit around the fire when we're out there."

"Fire?"

"Yeah. It's been getting cold outside, and snow's been starting to fall."

"Wow… time flies…" I said, looking down.

"What's wrong, Hayato? You know we're ready to do the plan in a couple days."

"It just feels so long," I said in a low tone, "I keep worrying about how much I missed. For all I know, my step sister could be awake by now."

Momiji's wolf-like ears pricked up. "Step sister?"

We stepped outside of the shooting range and went to the hideout's recreational center, and I told her about my life in the Underworld. I told her about my relationship with Satori and Koishi, and everything that happened from my visit at the Scarlet Devil Mansion to the accident leading to Koishi's coma.

"I'm sorry to hear about your step sister…" she said in her chair, "but don't beat yourself up about it. It's not like you knew what was going to happen."

"But it's still my fault. If I didn't lose control of myself, none of it would have happened, and I never would have ended up here... And besides, who knows how Satori's going to react when I get back, or if she'll even believe me. She probably hates me for tearing up the city anyway…"

There was a short pause before she responded. "Well, if you think she won't believe you, I could come along and help explain everything."

"You don't have to do that," I responded.

"I will. And you're not changing my mind."

"…I guess I can't… But why do you really insist on trying to help?"

She paused for a second. "It's what friends do. Is that a bad thing?"

"I guess not."

We shifted around in our seats in silence for a few minutes. It was a kind of awkward silence that made both of us uncomfortable. "Well, enough about me, what about you?"

"Huh? You want to know what my life's about?"

I nodded, still trying to change the subject.

"Well, okay I guess. I… I don't have much of a life to talk about actually. Y'know, I've been here so long in the facility, I've kind of forgotten what I used to do. All I can remember now is being one of Tenma's 'dogs of the military'."

"Can I ask you a question?" I inserted.

"Hmm? Sure."

My eyes moved up to her ears. "What kind of youkai are you?"

"I'm a tengu; a white wolf, specifically. We serve Tenma alongside the crow tengu to guard both the mountain and the facility. The majority of the white wolf tengu are down here, and the majority of the crows are on the mountain."

"How come I don't see the other tengu with ears like those?" I asked, pointing at them.

"I'm not exactly sure why. Most white wolf tengu are born with human ears, or they hide their wolf ears in some way. It's not rare, but I just don't care much about hiding mine."

"Oh."

"Well, that's enough sitting around. Want to go spar a bit?"

"Only if I get to use the naginata," I said with a smirk.

She replied with her own smirk. "Fine, tough guy, but you won't be so lucky this time."

…

Two more days passed, and it was almost time for the big moment. The finishing touches were put together as Nitori wired the device on my wrist to communicate on the Resistance's channel. It was the same device that Nitori and Momiji had: a wrist watch with an added communicator and multi-function card slot. I went back to my suite and began making my way to the prototype storage area. As I stepped out of the elevator into the recreational center, I saw a series of tengu, mostly white wolf, waiting around. There were also several kappas in the area. As I walked, I heard the channel of the facility's intercom statically open. "Staff members of Tsutomu Laboratories," stated Nitori's voice, "listen to what I have to say. Atsushi's plans for his research will accomplish nothing but destruction and heartache…"

I continued to the next elevator as most of the workers froze in place to listen to the speech. "Isolate that signal!" shouted a male voice on my communicator. In the background, I could hear faint voices speaking to him. "Sir, there have been reports of a breach in the armory at the fourth sector."

I switched my communicator to the Resistance's channel to hear the progress of the plan. "—explosives are in place… Team B checking in. Everything in the armory has been secured… Teams C and D, what are your statuses?"

"Team C checking in," I stated, "En route to prototype storage now."

I heard Momiji's voice whisper after me; there was a large amount of chatter in the background. "Team D checking in. Nitori's speech is stirring up attention. The lower members are preparing for their cue."

"Affirmative. This is Team A. Charges are set to detonate in two minutes. Team C, gather the equipment and make your way to cell block E."

"Affirmative."

I stepped out of the elevator, and made my way to the storage room. Using my card to open the vault door, and went down the alphabetized series halls until I reached "O". I walked down the hall, looking at the older versions of armored gauntlets. They ranged from shield gauntlets, to weapon gauntlets, to my elemental gauntlets. I approached the reinforced window holding my armor set, and took out a small bomb that I hid in my coat. I stuck it to the window, and set it for fifteen seconds to give myself time to get away from the blast.

When the bomb went off, alarms immediately began wailing. I ran to the compartment and put on the gauntlets and boots before making my way to find the rest of the equipment. Oddly, the design was much sleeker and smoother than the last ones, and felt lighter .As I turned around the corner, I saw a guard running after me.

"Halt!" He shouted, talking out his nightstick.

I allowed him to reach me, then moved forward and punched him in the chest. He yelled, and was sent flying a couple feet in front of me. It felt good to use it on a target outside of the testing chamber. After recollecting my thoughts, I proceeded to collect the other prototypes belonging to other test subjects. I hurried through the corridors of the vault, and picked up experimental armor, weapons, and visors. As I was about to finish collecting the last prototype, an explosion rocked the entire facility, and the power went out. I grabbed the last prototype, and made my way to the elevator. Of course, the elevators didn't work because the generators were destroyed, so I had to take the emergency staircase. I turned on my communicator as I climbed down the stairs.

"Team C checking in, making my way to Cell Block E now."

"Confirmed, Team C. Once you've freed the test subjects, go back to the recreational center to provide reinforcements."

I continued to the door that leads to the cell blocks. Once I got to the right one, I pried open each cell door, and handed the test subjects their prototypes. Seeing that the other groups had finished freeing their blocks, we regrouped and climbed back up to the recreational center, using the auxiliary lights as guides. As we got closer, the sound of gunshots became louder and louder. Bursting through the stairway exit, we found Momiji's team pitted against some of Atsushi's guards.

"It's about time you got here!" shouted Momiji over coms.

"We need to get the test subjects out of here!" I shouted back.

"Not before we secure the rec. center! Tell one of the agents to take the test subjects without prototypes up to the surface!"

I did as she said, and the rest of us rushed into the thick of the fight. Some of the test subjects ran in to brawl with the unarmed guards; the subjects with ranged prototypes fired on the guards perched on the second level. The agents and I ran to Momiji's group which was pinned behind a restaurant counter by a rain of bullets.

"What took you so long?!" she asked over the gunfire.

"We were fashionably late!" I yelled back.

She handed me my oversized pistol and its holster. "Fine it doesn't matter anyway! Now help us get out of this mess!"

When the guards up top stopped to reload, we returned fire in the general area just to give ourselves more elbow room. Keeping my pistol out, I ran under the gunfire and jumped up to the second level. Catching the four guards by surprise, I managed to knock a couple out with my free hand before the others aimed at me. I aimed my pistol back at them, and fired several random shots, mostly out of panic. Fortunately, I managed to kill one and incapacitate the other.

Momiji's group cleared out of the restaurant and either shot or ran the other guards out of the rec. center. Once the dust settled, we took a head count to see what our casualties were. We had lost a few kappa and tengu agents, and several reckless test subjects. We took off their prototypes, and after locking down the rec. center, followed the map up to the facility entrance.

"Teams D and C reporting in," Momiji said over coms, "Rec. has been secured. En route to the entrance."

Nitori's voice came up. "This is Team E. Do not open the door directly to the surface yet. Weather reports show a heavy snow storm outside. Keep them at the loading dock… Teams F through N, status reports…"

"Affirmative." Momiji turned off the communicator and turned to me. "Hayato, you need to take the subjects to the loading dock. I need to help deal with the rest of security…"

I nodded, and continued to the loading dock as Momiji turned to another hall. However, it wasn't long before a second explosion rocked the facility—one that the Resistance didn't plan.

"All teams report in!" Nitori shouted on coms. There were a few minutes of chatter to get a situation report on every team. Team K, however, didn't respond.

"Team K, what is your status? ...Team K, respond… Team C, we've lost contact with Team K. Your position is closest to them. You need to investigate what happened to them."

"What about the test subjects?" I asked.

"The other agents can escort the test subjects. Team K is your current objective. They were last located in the biologics laboratories."

I turned around and made my way to the other laboratories. As I got closer, signs of a fight were more than evident, but it wasn't a gun fight. The halls started becoming bloodier as I neared the labs, and it wasn't long before I started seeing dead bodies of both agents and guards. I reached the main entrance of the labs, and pried it open as most of the power was still out. What I found inside was grotesque.

The lobby of the laboratory was in a state of complete disarray. The floor was covered in a mix of bodies and blood. Looking closer, they weren't shot to death; rather, they were mutilated—torn apart, in fact. The ceilings had broken wires hanging from them, and the fire sprinklers were spraying water throughout the sector. The fact that the area was pitch-black was no help either; the only reason I could see was because of the communicator's built in flashlight. I took my pistol out, and carefully treaded through the waterlogged hallway, stepping over dead bodies I found.

As I approached the windowed operating rooms, I shined my light inside to see what was in them. Each one was painted in blood, and there were corpses of researchers—some missing either body parts or organs. Eventually, I could hear footsteps splashing in the hallway. I shined my light around, and approached a crossing ahead. I looked into the other three hallways, but couldn't see anything; however, I turned back to the hall ahead of me, and the footsteps came in rapid succession. I saw the water being pushed out of the way by a creature that was unlike anything I had ever seen. It barely resembled a human, but its entire body was disproportionately larger. The arms were twisted around, with the hands baring larger, dull nails. It had no feet, but instead, several large stubs that acted like legs. And the eyes—there were no eyes; just empty sockets with blood coming out of them.

When the thing spotted me, it said not a word—not even a growl. It just began running at me with its stubby legs. I shot at it with my pistol, but appeared to be unaffected by the bullets. Assuming this was what killed everything else here, I turned tail and ran the other direction, turning on my coms as I did.

"Nitori! It's Hayato! What in Blazes is down here?!"

"Hayato, What's going on?"

"Something that you aren't telling me is what's going on! There's something down here! It's destroyed everything in the labs!" Seeing that I had lost my unappealing follower, I slowed down to catch my breath.

"The power outage must have allowed the creatures to escape… Did you find any signs of Team K?"

"They've been turned inside-out by that thing! What the hell was Atsushi making?"

"There's no time to talk. You need to get out of the labs now, but you need to make sure patient zero can't escape."

"Patient zero?" I echoed.

"Not now. Keep that thing sealed and get out. We'll take care of it later."

The coms went dead, and it appeared that I had no choice. I turned to another hall, and searched for a way to keep "patient zero" from getting out. After looking around for ten minutes, I couldn't find anything sufficient, but apparently, it had found me again. Listening to the direction of the footsteps, I went in the opposite direction. The corridor eventually lead to a series of test chambers; glancing inside them, I could see creatures of similar composition inside them, however, they were either dead or unable to move. Each chamber had a number on it, leading from 30 to 01. At the end of the corridor was a larger chamber that was void of windows, and its number was 00. The doors seemed to have opened automatically. I peered inside, and found the chamber was massive, but nearly submerged by water coming from a broken pipe on the ceiling.

Hearing my pursuer close behind me, I jumped into the chamber, having to swim into the center, but the weight of my armor wouldn't allow it. I activated the boots, and kept myself levitating in the high part of the chamber. I watched as patient zero walked in and swam to the center of the chamber. It looked up at me, and began emitting a dark haze from the large holes in its body. The haze seemed to approach me like a magnet, and I did what I could to stay out of it. But blowing air at it didn't keep it away, and it was faster than my armor could take me. Eventually it caught up to me, and enveloped the whole chamber. I coughed for a few seconds inside of it, but oddly, the haze gave me a revived feeling. At the same time, it made me feel angry, vengeful, and gave me the sudden desire to kill. Grasping my head tightly, I concentrated on trying to keep my mind together, but I lost control of my boots in the process.

I fell into the water, and sank to the bottom of the chamber. I held my breath, and saw the creature swim its way down to me. I frantically tried to swim back up, but I was too heavy with my armor. With my lungs about to give up on me, I attempted to summon a bubble of air that could possibly help me float as well as give me the chance to breathe, but I ended up causing my gauntlets to activate some type of reverse suction. Water began filling the insides of my gauntlets, and eventually reached the panels on my arms. I felt a slight shock go through me, but that was the least of my problems. Having used the last of my oxygen, I exhaled in panic and closed my eyes. To my surprise, I could breathe instead of take in water. I opened my eyes, and the gray color of my gauntlets changed to a light blue.

I didn't know what was going on, but seeing that patient zero was only a few feet away from me, I attempted to leap away in reaction to it, and ended up several feet away from him. Whatever what happened to my gauntlets, I didn't care at the moment. Flying (or swimming) to the surface of the water, I made my way back to the door, and pulled it shut with my gauntlets. Assuming that was enough to hold it, I made my way back, but before I did, I tried something in the hall. I made a motion that I used to manipulate air, and the water in the hall corresponded to my motion. My assumption was correct, but I had no time to marvel at it, and I ran to the exit of the labs. But before I made it out the door, a cluster of twisted human-like entities charged at me in a swarm. I shot down a couple, but ended up having to seal the door shut before they got to me. Standing outside of the main entrance, I cautiously made my way back to the loading dock.


	12. Chapter 12: Going Home

Nitori was at the loading dock as I stomped in.

"What. In the Blazes. Was that… You knew that thing was there!"

She turned towards me without a bit of urgency. "Yes. But I didn't expect it to be loose. Did you contain it?"

"Yeah… Now do you mind telling me what that was?"

Her face became slightly more somber. "Alright. I'll tell you… But we need to take care of the matter at hand. Once this is over, I promise I'll fill you in."

I gave out a sigh, and reluctantly nodded. Nitori directed the agents to stay in the loading dock while the rest went back in for Atsushi. I overheard that Momiji was still "dealing with the rest of security". When everything was arranged, Nitori and I went back in to find Atsushi, but Nitori knew he wasn't coward enough to just run away. We made our way through the dark hallways using the auxiliary lights and our own flashlights, shooting down any leftover guards that tried to stop us. After climbing the stairs to the management sector, we walked towards Atsushi's office. Around the corner were four guards armed with machine guns; Nitori turned around and fired at each one using her pistol. Her aim was impeccable, considering that she took each one down with a single bullet.

Bursting through the door, we found Atsushi sitting across from us at his desk; the power in his room was still active.

"Isn't this a disappointment… Do you know how much repairs I have to make because of your little group? On top of that, I need to re-evaluate my officers now."

"Face it, Atsushi. You're out of business," Nitori said to him.

"Is that so?"

There were two shadows on both sides of the room, and when I looked at them, I saw a figure in each of them. When they stepped forward, both of them appeared to be tengu. One wore a white top with a black skirt, had semi-long black hair, and a camera around her neck. The other wore a similar outfit, save for the more pinkish-purple colors, and her hair was tied into pigtails. On her waist was a pocket holding a cell phone. Both had pistols pointed to our heads.

"Aya… Hatate… How could you?" Nitori asked with despair.

"You didn't think we were really listening to your fanaticism, did you?" said the one with pigtails.

"I had you cornered from the start, my dear," inserted Atsushi, "Aya and Hatate were onto your plans from the very beginning. They tracked your every move, step by step. And just to give you a sporting chance, I even allowed some of your special members positions as officers to make you think I let my guard down. It was foolish of you to even try."

Nitori fell onto her knees in disbelief. "No… We were so close…"

"And if you're wondering about your dog friend…"

A taller tengu woman appeared from Atsushi, dragging a motionless Momiji behind her.

"What did you do!" I shouted at her.

"Why, nothing at all! She was so worn out from fighting the rest of the guards, she collapsed before she had a chance to touch me. I didn't need to break a sweat." She said, throwing Momiji near us.

"That's enough playful banter. I have much to attend to. Have a nice time at Higan."

The other two tengu pointed their guns closer to us. "Aya… I thought we were friends…  
Nitori said bitterly.

"Sorry, Nitori, it's just business."

I closed my eyes before I heard her pull the trigger, but rather than hearing Nitori scream, I heard Atsushi instead. Jerking my eyes open, I saw Atsushi holding the left side of his head, and Aya's gun was pointed straight at him. A second later, Nitori got off he ground and pointed her gun at Tenma. Not knowing what was going on, I jumped to the side and pointed my pistol at Hatate.

"Agh…. What the hell…" Atsushi said, fighting back the pain.

"The Resistance is bigger than you think, Atsushi," Nitori stated.

"But… how?"

"Meet my double-agent. Aya Shameimaru."

"So, you really did buy into their crap, didn't you?" Hatate blurted out.

"It's better than _your_ crap." Aya replied.

"So, Atsushi, I believe that's checkmate," Nitori said.

"Not yet… Hatate!"

She pulled out a small bomb and threw it at the ground; it created a deafening pop and blinded us with a burst of light. When we regained our sight, the three of them were gone, with a small hidden tube revealed behind Atsushi's desk. I proceeded to follow them, but Nitori stopped me.

"Don't worry about it now, they're gone."

"Wait, what about Momiji?"

I turned around and saw Momiji beginning to open her eyes. "Dammit… she got away," she said, mostly to herself.

"What the hell just happened?" I asked in total confusion.

Nitori began explaining. "The plan for taking over the facility had a few extra parts that I couldn't let everyone know about. Momiji's job was to single-handedly take out Tenma's guards near Atsushi's office, then take out Tenma. However, because of how risky it was, I gave Momiji the choice to feign exhaustion to avoid getting herself killed. In the mean time, Aya was waiting with Atsushi to 'ambush' us when we got to him."

"So… the 'I thought we were friends' phrase was an act?" I asked. The three of them nodded. I was at a loss of words; maybe because of how complex this plan might have been, or just because of total confusion.

Nitori radioed the agent in charge of the test subjects that Atsushi had been run out of the facility, and then started thinking about what to do next.

"Hold on. You said you'd tell me what that thing was in the laboratories."

"Oh, right." Nitori sat down in Atsushi's desk, and started to explain. "Atsushi's plan was to create a massive army to take over Gensokyo, probably for military rule. This included researching new weapons based off human technology as well as biological testing as you already know. However, the biological testing was more extensive than just fusing weapons to body parts. Atsushi began a project that was supposed to create physically enhanced troops that were more resistant to dangers like bullets, explosions, and fire. That project almost became a success, but Atsushi started a second project at the same time. Using the same methods for the enhanced troops, he created another individual being for another purpose. We don't know what that purpose was, but the creature he created was able to reproduce damaged tissue at an extreme rate, as well as have no ability to feel pain. The most disturbing trait is its ability to store up and release large amounts of a type of toxic gas. The gas is able to either kill an average human, or infect one into a type of diseased husk. However, the creature couldn't be controlled by Atsushi by any means, so it tried to escape the labs and fulfill whatever purpose it was programmed for, which all we can assume right now is killing anything it sees. So, it was kept in a reinforced test chamber until the researchers could figure out how to terminate it. They never could, and the power outage probably deactivated the lock on its door."

"And… and you sent people down there? It was obviously going to kill them!" I shouted.

"We didn't expect it to come out of its chamber! Had we known it was out, we would have sealed that entire sector as soon as possible, okay?"

I looked down, shaking my head. "So, what are you going to do with it?"

"Once we've secured the facility and gotten it somewhere safe, we're going to work on destroying it. It's too dangerous to keep around."

"Okay…"I said, letting out another sigh.

We took some time to calm our nerves a bit and recollect our thoughts.

"Listen, Nitori, I'm sorry for yelling at you… It's just been a little nerve racking lately…" I said to her.

"It's alright, Hayato…" she let out a sigh similar to mine, "I think we're all a little on edge right now. But, our mission was a success. All we need to do now is help the test subjects get back to the human village and clean up the facility. You could… stick around, if you want."

"I might. But first, I need to get home."

"Right. Hey, why are your gauntlets blue?"

I looked down, and sure enough, my gauntlets were still light blue from the labs. "I don't know. They ended up like that when I was in patient zero's test chamber."

"What happened?"

"I ended up sinking in a pool of water and I couldn't get out. I tried to use my gauntlets to make some air, but ended up making it like reverse or something. When it turned blue, I was breathing underwater, and could move around really fast in it."

"Wait a second, let me look at something. Take off your gauntlets," Nitori said.

I took them off and gave them to her. She looked inside them for a couple seconds, then gave them back to me.

"That must have been the adaptive feature of the O-530's…" she said to herself.

I raised an eyebrow as I put them back on. "O-530's? I thought these were the O-520's."

"The prototypes you tested were the O-520's, but I gave you directions to the new O-530's because they had an extra feature, but it wasn't specified."

"So, you figured the feature out?"

"Maybe," she said, putting her fingers to her temples, "The O-530's were said to have a reverse flow feature for certain reasons. It must be to gather samples for new elements. They are the _Elemental_ Gauntlets, after all, not the 'Air' Gauntlets."

"How do I switch back to air?"  
"I don't know. Probably the same way you use your gauntlets normally: thinking about it."

It was a better guess than I could think of, so I gave it a try. I mentally "commanded" my gauntlets to switch back to air, and they eventually reverted back to their original gray color.

"Technology's a confusing thing…" I muttered.

"Nah. It's just complex," Nitori said with a smile, "Oh, by the way, Hayato, I have something for you." She reached into her backpack and pulled out my old black and white kimono.

I looked at it with gaping awe. "How did…"

"Someone brought it up when it couldn't be destroyed in the incinerator," she said.

That's right. I remembered that my kimono had also been enchanted to withstand extreme heat since I lived in the Underworld.

We talked over what was going to happen over the next few days. Nitori and the Resistance were going to return the test subjects back to the human village where they lived (of course, without their prototypes), and then begin work on repairing the facility and cleaning up the mess. When the head count was finished, it was estimated that we had lost about two dozen agents in the skirmish, and about fourteen test subjects. A small portion of kappa remained loyal to Atsushi, though the majority was with Nitori. The white wolf tengu were virtually completely devoted to Nitori, and the opposite could have been said about the crow tengu, with the exception of Aya. Taking complete control of the facility was also estimated to take a while as many of Atsushi's followers barricaded themselves inside many of the facility's sectors. I made plans to head back to the Underworld, and then visit the Scarlet Devil Mansion to tell them what happened and to check on Flandre if she ever improved while I was gone.

…

Three days passed before we were sure that the facility was stable enough to not explode. Once that was finished, we were ready to open the loading dock's hatch leading to the outside. Nitori had mentioned something about checking on a nearby facility that was linked to the current one, but it wasn't important to me. The clocks reported it to be ten at night when we were about to open the hatch. Nitori gave the signal, and the massive stronger-than-steel doors slowly slid open. We were welcomed by a gust of freezing air and a s curtain of snowfall. The outside lights switched on, and looking at the landscape of the side of the mountain, I noticed that I actually wasn't far from the geyser entrance. I was the first to step onto the snow covered ground, and took a deep breath of the fresh air. With my kimono back on, I began making my way to the entrance, but not before using the gauntlets' sampling systems to adapt to ice. After I finished, I walked to the geyser, and Momiji kept her promise of coming with me to the Palace.

As we approached the geyser, Momiji looked at me with a bit of question. "How are we supposed to get through? The water's boiling hot."

"I can get through just fine, but as for you, there's a reason why I got these," I said, holding up my whitish blue gauntlets.

"What are you going to—hey!"

I grabbed her by the arm and encased her in a shell of ice. Switching back to my neutral setting, I took the case with me as I sunk to the bottom of the geyser. When we made it out, Momiji's shell had melted into nothing but warm water.

She coughed out a bit of water, then looked up at the Underworld Entrance. "Wow, this place is beautiful," she marveled.

I wasn't surprised that Momiji knew how to fly, since it was a basic concept, and we made our way to the city.

As I flew over, many of the citizens looked up at the two of us; more specifically, me. I could tell what was going through their minds: "_He_ was back."

It wasn't long before we reached the Palace of the Earth Spirits; my home. But as I walked through the gates, I could only feel a sense of dread. I had been gone so long, I didn't know how Satori was going to react. I stopped before I opened the door. Momiji asked what was wrong, and I explained my thoughts.

"Come on. I think they'd be happy to see you. Give it a shot."

I nodded, and opened the door. The Palace still had its usual stream of workers doing their tasks, but they all stopped when I came through the door.

"Master Hayato?" one asked in disbelief.

"Quickly, someone inform Miss Satori!" shouted another.

A few minutes passed as the workers oriented themselves back to work, and one came up and asked us to follow her to Satori. She lead us to one of the Parlors, one that Satori commonly sat in during the day. The worker showed us inside, then left.

"Satori…" I said.

"It's… really you…" she said, looking at me. "Where in the Blazes have you been?! I've been worried sick about you, and then you just come back here without a single problem!"

"Satori, wait."

"What were you doing all this time? Did you even know that Koishi's woke up?"

"What? When?"

"A month ago. She's alright… But you weren't there when she opened her eyes…"

"Satori, let me explain."

"Go on then." Satori said, sitting in a chair.

I paused for a second, then motioned for Momiji to help me out. "I can explain for him."

"And who are you?" Satori asked.

"Momiji Inubashiri. Hayato's friend."

"Fine. Explain it to me."

Momiji explained everything that happened from my capture to taking back the facility. Satori looked with an expression of apathy.

Satori responded when Momiji finished. "Do you honestly expect me to believe you?"

"Satori… why are you being so cold?" I asked.

"Because everything that has gone wrong lately has been linked to you. It's your fault that Koishi ended up in a coma."

"Do… Do you really think that?"

"It adds up in my opinion."

I looked at her silently. I had nothing to say. I was completely alienated by someone I thought I could call my sister. Now, by some twist of fate, she was just someone I couldn't talk to any longer. I turned around and made my way out the door.

As I walked, I spotted a yellow and green figure ahead of me. As I got closer, it was clearly Koishi. She approached me with her kind, warm smile as she always did, and I couldn't help but return the same smile to her.

"I missed you so much, big brother," she said, hugging me.

"I missed you too," I said in a low tone.

"Where have you been" she asked.

"I've been… somewhere far. But it doesn't matter."

"So, that means you're staying with us again, right?"

I took a long pause. "I don't think I can…"

"But, why not?"

"There are things my heart needs to deal with. But I can't do it here."

Her smile briefly changed to a frown, but she used her third eye to read my subconscious, which essentially allowed her to see everything I experienced. Her frown soon reverted back to a smile. "I understand. I'm going to have a talk with Satori. Just make sure you come back some day."

"I will."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

She gave me another long hug, and I walked out of the main door. After I shut the door, I sat at the stairs of the entrance, and shed layers of tears. My life was turned upside down, and I didn't even have a home to go to. I flew near the reactor, and sat on a ledge to think, with Momiji sitting near me. We sat there for a few minutes without saying a word.

I managed to break the silence. "What am I going to now? I didn't think she'd react like that."

"It's not your fault, Hayato." Momiji added.

"But she's right. Everything that's happened to Koishi and the city is because of me…"

"You need to quit dwelling in the past," she said, holding my shoulder, "There's nothing you can change, so you need to think of what to do now."

Aaaaand this, ladies and gentlemen, is where I stopped writing 2 years ago. I do apologize for having you read through that garbage, but I have (hopefully) gotten better in the past two years. If you've made it this far, congratulations, you're insane. If you actually liked this junk enough (In which case you'll have to provide me evidence that you're not actually lying), throw me a... whatever it is this site has, that says you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading. Unless you hated it, then, well how and why'd you get here?

NOW HERE'S A BIT OF A Q&A

Q: THIS STORY SUCKS

A: I know. This thing is old.

Q: THE TITLE MAKES NO SENSE

A: The story was supposed to involve Hayato losing control of his ability to control light and dark, which was linked to his past (can you spell cliche?). This was supposed to be a great deal longer, but I started to realize the transition into the second part wouldn't go smoothly into an already rickety plotline, and I was also having aspirations to create my own content. Because of that, DC ended on what I guess is barely a cliffhanger and stopped working on it.

Q: OC'S ARE DUMB

A: I don't disagree.

Q: NONE OF THESE ARE QUESTIONS

A: Congratulations! You have eyes and brain cells!

Q: Will you ever go back and finish it?

A: Only if I'm convinced that this story can be saved. Which would take a great deal of convincing.

Q: Sometimes I see "Kikato" in context. Who the blue holy fuck is that?

A: Let's just say I was pretty dumb when it came to names. It's Hayato with his older name.

Now here's a question for you. This thing deserves to stay dead and buried, as far as I can tell, but it kinda makes me sad that it was both poorly made and is incomplete. So, should I-  
1. Go back and rewrite everything to be better as a reboot?

2. Continue as it is? (Not recommended)

3. Keep this corpse buried?

4. Write another story that involves the plotline of this one?

Now I'm going to ask you to waste your time once more, and PM me the number of your corresponding preference. Or, you can just shout at me for sucking at writing. Your choice.


End file.
